Extreme Cold Era: Shelter Don't Keep Waste-Chapter 930 - 155: The Divine Core of Sekhmet (Part 2)
This war with the Desert Tribe was truly unremarkable. The only worthwhile gains, apart from the valuable test data collected by the Godslaying Armor in actual combat, were probably the divine core left behind after Sekhmet was slain.
The appearance of this Desert Deity was completely different from any deity Perfikot had encountered before.
It did not descend into the human world in a traditional flesh-and-blood form, and it is difficult to define whether it even possessed a complete form by any conventional standards.
During the battle with the Godslaying Armor, the body it displayed was merely a temporary aggregation of swirling yellow sand, which disintegrated into ordinary sand particles immediately after being defeated. This phenomenon clearly indicated it did not possess a true physical form.
According to Perfikot's understanding of deities, a true deity should not exist in this form.
Previously, every deity she had seen, whether descended in its true form or summoned forth, was a real entity of flesh and blood.
Even the Ancestral Spirit that the native inhabitants of the Northern Territory believed in had no specific form, merely residing within the Totem Pole, but the Ancestral Spirit could not be classified as a deity.
This abnormal phenomenon piqued Perfikot's intense interest.
She couldn't help pondering what kind of unique form of existence this was and whether Sekhmet had truly been completely destroyed.
What concerned her even more was that if the method by which the Desert Tribe summoned such a unique deity could be successfully deciphered, it might lead to the development of some strategically valuable new tactics.
By then, the Imperial army might also master this powerful ability to summon deities.
After asking the Alchemist a few key questions about the recovery process of the divine core, Perfikot delegated the tedious task of organizing battle data from the Godslaying Armor entirely to them.
She eagerly turned and rushed into her private laboratory to conduct in-depth research on the mysterious core that had just been recovered.
Sekhmet's divine core lay quietly on the laboratory bench, exuding a dull stony luster under the cold alchemy lamps.
At first glance, it was merely a very simple stone sculpture, with its rough texture bearing witness to the passage of long years.
The statue was meticulously carved into the image of Sekhmet—the desert goddess with the head of a lioness and the body of a woman, maintaining a dignified sitting posture, her clearly defined muscular hands holding weapons crossed over her chest.
On her head was a crown symbolizing the sun, with each radiant line clearly visible, the gemstone at the center of the crown long since dulled.
The base of the statue was inscribed with ancient hieroglyphs, faintly visible under the light, seemingly narrating some legendary tale of a lost civilization.
To devout followers, this statue indeed appeared ancient and filled with dignity, with every detail exuding a sacred aura.
The mottled marks were not wear from time but proof of divine miracles; the coarse textures not flaws in craftsmanship, but manifestations of divinity.
But in Perfikot's eyes, it was merely a stone statue with research value.
Her gloved fingers gently traced the grooves on the statue's surface, not with reverence for the divine, but with a series of unresolved equations and experimental plans swirling in her mind.
To her, this statue's value lay not in the deity it represented, but in the energy structure and material composition it contained, and how it constructed such a grand form.
The laboratory's cold white light cast sharp shadows on the statue's surface, creating clear lines of demarcation, much like Perfikot's gaze upon it: precise, rational, and devoid of warmth.
She was wearing a monocle for alchemical analysis, her eyes behind the lens narrowing slightly, shining with the unique focus of someone analyzing data.
To her, it was merely a research sample waiting to be deconstructed, just like the alchemical materials labeled and stored in the laboratory, holding no sense of awe for the divine.
Her fingers tapped lightly on the statue's surface, emitting a dull sound as if mocking the ignorant believers who worshipped this figure.
After conducting a simple study on this statue, she concluded... it was just a totem made of stone, lacking even commendable artistic value.
She scraped off some stone powder with an alchemy knife and analyzed its composition through a detection device, which revealed a most ordinary sandstone base.
Indeed, this stone carving—Sekhmet's divine core—was similar to the totem poles worshipped by the native inhabitants of the Northern Territory. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦
They both carried the faith and hopes of specific groups, embodying the manifestation of primitive religious worship.
Perfikot even noted that the seemingly mysterious patterns on the base actually bore a striking similarity to the decorative designs on the Northern Totem Poles.
However, unlike the totem poles, this statue did not harbor a deity; it only contained an element of remaining divine power and a trace of weak divinity.
When Perfikot subjected it to testing, the instruments only detected faint energy fluctuations, far from the strength expected of a complete divine core.
This differed slightly from the totem poles, where the Ancestral Spirit existed with self-awareness, and its condensed divinity was more abundant than in this statue.
Perfikot recalled dissecting several Northern Totem Poles before; those samples at least provided noticeable feedback to detection, sometimes even exhibiting resistance reactions.
It seemed this item was like a variant of a totem pole; although the lion-headed human form looked entirely different from the Northern abstract totem symbols, their core was no different, both products of primitive faith.
Perfikot gave a soft hum and placed the statue casually back on the laboratory bench, turning to prepare more precise detection instruments.
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After continuous days of research, Perfikot finally arrived at some conclusive findings.
This statue of Sekhmet was merely activated using some ancient ceremonial methods, a special approach that unleashed the divine power and faith contained within, enabling it to erupt with combat capabilities comparable to deities on the battlefield.
Through precise alchemical instruments, she discovered that the faint divinity within the statue ignited like a fuse when activated, producing a chain reaction.
This divinity instinctively drove the massive faith stored within the statue to spontaneously construct a complete form of the Sekhmet deity in the void.
This process of energy materialization was remarkable, allowing the deity projection summoned by the statue to engage in fierce combat with the Empire's two latest Godslaying Armors, even damaging them to a state of disrepair.
"What a nuisance..." Perfikot frowned as she checked the armor's damage report.
Although these damages were indeed repairable, undoubtedly, the technicians responsible for repairs would feel like cursing upon seeing these battered armors.
Especially the complete destruction of the left arm's transmission system and the energy overload marks on the chest plate, which required the replacement of numerous precise components.
Also, the statue fell into a completely dormant state after Sekhmet's body was shattered by the Godslaying Armor.
Now it lay quietly on the laboratory bench, like an ordinary piece of stone.
It was evident that whether it was the trace of divinity acting as the core or the enormous faith gathered within the statue, both were overly consumed in that battle.
The entire deity statue had lost its vitality, its surface grooves dull and lifeless, like a piece of ordinary stone utterly drained of all its worth.
However, this provided Perfikot with inspiration; perhaps she could investigate the characteristics of this deity statue to study how to summon a deity, calling forth a divine incarnation of a deity.
