Chapter 233: Stikua

The supreme ruler of the city-state of Tephis in Tuten was the mayor. The mayor ruled the city-state of Tephis, along with all of the towns and villages around it, thus making him almost equivalent to the king of a small country.

As such, a mayor only accepted the call of the King of Tuten Kingdom. He also had the right to be elected king.

But, those who could compete for the throne were usually only the mayors of the big city-states. As Tephis was a newly rising small city-state, although its mayor could run for election, he had little chance of becoming a king.

This was especially true since the recent elections had almost all been won by the mayors of the northern city-state of Vansey. After destroying the Batko Empire, Vansey had acquired a great deal of wealth and slaves, thus raising its political status within the Tuten Kingdom. Since that time, eight mayors from Vansey had become kings consecutively!

Meanwhile, a small fishing village on the border of Tephis had recently begun to experience some strange things. Living within this village was a man named Heckfoss.

Heckfoss was dreaming about his village, and it was dark and chaotic dream. Within the darkness, there were countless monsters lurking. However, Heckfoss could not see anything, yet he could feel the malice of the monsters.

All of this had started when he had gone to the market in Tephis. On his way back, Heckfoss had found a piece of paper that had a terrible monster image on it. This monster had a huge, ferocious head and many menacing claws.

The image of the monster was deeply imprinted in Heckfoss’ mind, and every time he recalled it, the image became clearer. Every time Heckfoss fell asleep, he entered a dark world where, at first nothing was visible, but gradually, dim shadows would appear. He would then find himself walking on a dark continent where the ground was stone-like.

“Ah!” Heckfoss awoke from his nightmare with sweat all over his face. This time, unlike the previous days, he had seen the shadow of a huge creature that was large enough to hide the sky!

Heckfoss was panicked. Every time he fell asleep, he could feel the terrible monster approaching him, then constantly dragging him down into the abyss.

After Heckfoss finally saw the figure of the monster, he could decipher that it was a huge monster that was floating in the sky. A large number of claws danced behind it, while its two evil eyes looked down at Heckfoss.

It then conveyed its will to Heckfoss, who somehow knew what it meant. “You can’t escape, so you might as well embrace me.”

No! it’s not just a dream! It’s the picture that got it wrong. Where do I put it? It must be burned, so I can get rid of that monster!

Tortured by his dream and inner thoughts, Heckfoss searched frantically in his house and finally found the paper. He was going to destroy it, hoping to eradicate the source of his nightmares.

Heckfoss burned the paper to ashes, but found that it didn’t help at all! The monster was still approaching Heckfoss in his dreams!

People in the village began to worry about Heckfoss, as his behavior became quite manic. Even when he was walking on the road, he would make strange noises, which were the exact same noises as the monster in his dream made.

Finally, as he was dreaming one night, Heckfoss saw the monster even more clearly. It had a large, pitted head, which had a surface like that of the moon, and its two huge eyes and big mouth were terrifying! It also had numerous thick claws that it was waving behind its head!

The monster gave out a huge roar, which Heckfoss understood to be its name. To be exact, it translated roughly into “Stikua!”

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At this moment, Heckfoss felt that something had penetrated directly into his mind, reading his memory and pouring into his mind countless malicious intentions. Heckfoss stood vacantly on the continent in the center of the Abyss World, looking at the huge monster.

He then suddenly laughed wildly, looking like a madman. “My master! The King of the Devil, Stikua!”

——————

Back at the castle, Lu Zhiyu had finally figured out where the Book of the Devil might have fallen. He calculated that it should be on the eastern coast of Tuten. However, its exact location was still uncertain.

If it fell into the sea and flew into a corner of Maria’s World, then was carried along by the ocean’s currents, it was unlikely that all of its pages could be found, even if Lu Zhiyu used the Divine Kingdom to scan for them. This was because it was impossible to scan for all of the information in every corner of the world at the same time, even by using the picture scroll.

But, since Lu Zhiyu just needed to find out whether the Book of the Devil had an impact wherever it had landed, the Divine Kingdom scanned through Tuten, immediately showing that the eastern part of Tephis had experienced some strange occurrences recently.

As it turns out, numerous pages of the Devil’s book had been scattered around Tephis, some in the wilderness, some in the countryside, and some in the city. In fact, nearly 200 pages of paper had fallen down, of which Lu Zhiyu only found around a hundred, as the others had been damaged or lost entirely.

Lu Zhiyu found that many of the people who saw the monster image from the pages had already been eroded by the power of the devil species in the Abyss World. Some people, those who were especially determined, optimistic, and open-minded, were hardly affected. On the other hand, those who were pessimistic or psychologically unstable would continue to recall the image in their mind, until they were eventually driven into madness.

The devil species was similar to mythological lifeforms in that they took the form that was between a virtual substance and a material substance. As such, they could conduct power and information transmission regardless of space. Hence, as long as you knew the image of the monsters and their real names, you could contact them.

Lu Zhiyu’s book recorded the real name of the devil species. Although some of these people did not know Phinks, they subconsciously remembered it when they looked at the monster’s image. The book depicted the monster’s real name as being not only a name, but also a wave signal that was connected with their soul fire. It was like a telephone number.

Once the monster appeared, some of the most extremely pessimistic and paranoid guys could not control themselves and dialed the devil hotline. However, on the other end of the line was not a delicate customer service person, but a monster that was filled with evil desires, which could come across the endless distance in the phone line to catch the caller in its clutches!

The devil species in the Abyss World would then control these people who had contacted them from the outside world. In this way, many people’s awarenesses were devoured by the devil species. As a result, they either died or became unconscious monsters themselves.

Lu Zhiyu sat in the library of the floating castle, waving his fingers constantly, while adjusting the projection on the picture scroll. He was observing and retrieving the book pages.

He saw that many of those who were associated with the devil had their memories erased after the pages had been taken back. However, Lu Zhiyu figured that there must be some pages that he had missed. So, Lu Zhiyu was now observing a village off the coast of Tephis.

“What is this?” Lu Zhiyu opened his mouth wide.

He suddenly saw an ugly and ferocious monster statue that had been built on a wooden altar above a square. A young man, who was dressed in black, was standing in front of the altar and preaching to a large number of villagers.

“Is is a cult? Did the devil species do this too?” Lu Zhiyu was stunned. “Those devils are all thinking about fighting and devouring desires. As such, they are not able to distinguish between enemies and allies, let alone have clear ideas. So, how would they know how to preach? They are not like typical devils at all!”

Lu Zhiyu took a closer look at the statue. Based on its head and claws, it seemed to be Stikua, the leader of the devil species in the central continent of the Abyss World. Lu Zhiyu thought this was interesting, so he decided to wait and see what else would happen.

At this time, Akkad, who had been staying in Tephis for some time now, came towards this fishing village in an ox-cart..