A man wearing the traditional flowing green-and-black robes of the Five-Headed Tortoise Sect walked up a spiral staircase. A jade beauty walked beside him, a dagger-shaped scar on the back of her neck.
“The Cracked Shell Council is waiting,” she said, “and we could just portal up.”
“I know,” the man responded, “but it’s about the tradition of it. And what are they going to do, depose me?”
“Maybe Eugene will,” she joked.
The man frowned.
“The situation is extremely troublesome. We need to act with the utmost caution when it comes to the ancient demon cultivator.”
“You’re that afraid of Eugene?”
She laughed.
“The Hibiscan world is seven hundred years more advanced than he is.”
“Don’t discount the power of forgotten demon cultivator techniques,” he replied.
“Then answer me. Between you and Eugene, who is stronger?”
“Being a rank ahead of him in cultivation makes any fight a foregone conclusion. I’d easily win.”
“And what if Eugene still had his Hibiscan artifact he ripped from the Holy Book? To even the scales, assume neither of you have any dragons.”
“That might make it a little tricky.”
“But would you lose?”
“Nah, I’d win.”
They ceased conversing as they reached the top level of the Five-Headed Tortoise Sect. The round table in the center of the enormous room was bathed in the light rays coming through a dome. The most powerful Sect Elders were there, along with the leaders of the most important subsidiary sects that had pledged subservience to the Five-Headed Tortoise Sect. Saddam Hussein was present too. He had not yet elected to join the sect, wanting to learn more about the contemporary Hibiscan world before committing to anything. He did harbor a strong distrust of the Fourth Jade Alliance, though. He was allowed to sit in on meetings related to countering Eugene as an effort to curry favor.
The man in the simple robes, Lubomir Danowski, sat at the largest seat of the table, his companion taking her place at the seat reserved for the head of the Dagger-Shaped Scar Sect.
The Red Celestial Dragon rotated around him as he sat in silence.
“This meeting of the Cracked Shell Council of the Five-Headed Tortoise Sect begins,” he spoke.
“Our honored guest claims that he felt Eugene’s ripples in the Hibiscan waves. Before losing my foresight, I saw vague premonitions of the emergence of a demon cultivator, but could not identify any details.”
There was dead silence in the room.
“Saddam, elaborate for the rest of the council.”
Saddam Hussein cleared his throat.
“What you call the Dawn and Dusk Sect was the source of the ripples. They were as clear as day, and unmistakably the demon essence of Eugene. I awoke about a week after the waves were created. But, the instant I sensed them, I realized that they had vanished only a few hours after appearing. One moment there, one moment gone. I was merely feeling their subtle afterimage. It made me suspect that Eugene had traveled in time again, like he may have done seven hundred years ago.”
“Thank you, Saddam,” said Lubomir, “and this is backed up by our own Hibiscan ripple detectors. Our state-of-the-art enchanted hibiscuses just barely picked up a signal of demonic cultivation that came from the Dawn and Dusk Sect and that abruptly stopped a few hours after it began.”
“As for whether it’s Eugene specifically, that we haven’t independently confirmed. But Saddam seems certain of it.”
“I was in the rock for a thousand years, with nothing to do but feel the Hibiscan waves. I experienced Eugene’s reign of terror, felt the disgusting, corrupted ripples of Hibiscan energy that his actions produced. I would not mistake it for anything else.” stated Saddam Hussein.
The identity of the former dictator of Iraq had been confirmed. He had caused quite the ruckus by showing up and declaring that Eugene had returned, leading many to at first assume that he was Eugene. During the ensuing standoff, he claimed to be Saddam Hussein. He certainly looked like him, and an inspection of the hole he had emerged from showed that it was definitely one of the places where the American military had suspected he was a millennium ago. Fingerprints and other records of identity had been lost over the centuries, so at the moment, they could not be quite 100% certain that he was actually Saddam Hussein. Regardless, there was enough evidence to be relatively sure it was really him.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“It’s unclear if Eugene time traveled again, or something similar to that,” Lubomir said. “Regardless, we will be on the lookout for him.”
The leader of the Five-Headed Tortoise Sect felt a feeling of great unease wash over him. The red light bathing him faded away, the Red Celestial Dragon that produced it dissipating.
Everyone stared at him. Lubomir made eye contact with Wen, his spymaster, who was seated next to him. That was enough for him to know that his task was to find out who had the Red Dragon. He got up, cut a purple portal, and slipped in, the rift closing behind him.
His mind raced as to what to do. He had known this was essentially inevitable. There was no way that he would be the wisest and the strongest of Hibiscan cultivators forever. Yet, it was still difficult to believe.
During the Tortoise Age, when his sect had reigned over the entire world, it had always been a member of the Five-Headed Tortoise Sect that had the Three Celestial Dragons. The sect’s supremacy had been broken in wars with the newly founded Fourth Jade Alliance, and eventually the world settled into a balance between the two powers.
There wouldn’t be anyone with the Purple Celestial Dragon in cases where the wisest cultivator was also not the strongest cultivator. Ten years ago that was the case. A cultivator in the Jade Alliance, Władysław Kalkowski, had the Red Dragon, and Lubomir had the Blue Dragon. Lubomir challenged Wladyslaw to a fight and won. He resorted to trickery to get the upper hand against the cultivator that was objectively stronger than him. Lubomir was now the strongest and the wisest in the world, and the Purple Dragon belonged to him.
The future sight granted by the Purple Dragon was intoxicating. Often, Lubomir would do nothing but meditate and sift through visions. He carefully steered the Five-Headed Tortoise Sect through time, re-asserting some of its old dominance.
Lubomir had come to terms with it being gone, but at least he had had the Red Dragon. Now, with both of them gone, and even worse, both dragons belonging to cultivators of the Fourth Jade Alliance, the situation had turned calamitous.
A purple scar opened in reality and Wen popped through.
“It’s Kash.”
“Continue,” Lubomir replied.
“After Kash’s fight with Grzegorz Bielszowicki at the Dawn and Dusk Sect, he went back to the Boiling Water sect. He then engaged in a series of sparring matches, the concluding one being a 1v472 against every Sect Elder present, which he won. His fighting style was clearly different from before, lik-.”
“We have Hibiscan analysts on that, right?” He glanced at Stefan Konkol, his Chief Hibiscologist.
“No, but I’ll-”
“Get on it. Wen?”
“Likely because of his fight with Grzegorz, which appears to have induced some sort of revelation in him. My spies tell me that after winning the battle against the Sect Elders, he went to a meditation location.”
“Where?”
“We don’t know and are investigating the matter.”
Lubomir pondered the circumstances. This was an atrocious series of events. Eugene had probably returned, but no one had the Purple Dragon to see him. The demon cultivator was known to be somehow connected with the Fourth Jade Alliance, which coincidentally now possessed the Blue and Red Dragons.
Not to mention whatever was up with Czeslaw’s son jumping six ranks in a day, an unprecedented event in Hibiscan history. He had pulled off multiple Dimension Expulsions during his fight with Kash and had an apparent mastery of Hibiscan teleportation. The greatest Hibiscan prodigy of all time, they were calling him. Even more talent than Kambili, some scant few heretics said.
Lubomir was jolted out of his thoughts by a portal appearing. A man stepped through, a subordinate of Wen.
“The Snake is ready to speak,” he said.
Now? The Snake had been silent for months. The gargantuan Five-Headed Tortoise had a miles-long snake attached to it capable of speech. The Heavenly Beast had existed for thousands of years, but only revealed itself to the world during the Dawn Era of Hibiscan history. It and the Dog were the two Heavenly Beasts aligned with the Four Gods. But during the Dawn Age, the Tortoise tried to sneak into heaven, to usurp the very gods that were its patrons.
The gods cast it down, its shell cracking once it hit the earth. The Five-Headed Tortoise, mortally wounded, managed to stave off death by consuming rare Hibiscan herbs to heal itself. Occasionally, cultivators would track it down, and it would offer them Hibiscan wisdom in exchange for something it could eat that would keep it alive. Hundreds of years after it was thrown down, Kambili, the first Hibiscologist to reach Kambili rank in cultivation, found it.
He made a deal. The Five-Headed Tortoise would allow a sect to be built atop it, in exchange for that sect serving its requests. Kambili and his followers founded the Five-Headed Tortoise Sect which grew ever stronger from learning the Hibiscan wisdom of the Heavenly Beast. But after winning victory against the last of the demon sects, the sect betrayed the Third Jade Alliance of the Four Holy Hibiscan Sects and conquered or eradicated any sects that dared stand against them. The Five-Headed Tortoise became the undisputed hegemonic power of the world.
Of course, the Snake didn’t just ask for Hibiscan herbs. The Tortoise would consume anything it thought would give it power it could use to prevent its perpetually-delayed death.
Lubomir turned to the Council. “This meeting is paused for now. When the procession returns, you’ll all be briefed on what the Snake wants.”
“Wen, Stefan, and Iwan will accompany me.”
Iwan Mackiewicz was the Five-Headed Tortoise Sect’s chief strategist and military commander. Together, those three plus Lubomir were the most important of the Cracked Shell Council, the inner circle of the inner circle. They were the only people that Lubomir trusted enough to hear the unfiltered words of the Snake.
Lubomir opened a large portal and they walked through, emerging beneath the belly of the Tortoise. The dim purple light vanished as he closed the portal. A few hundred feet ahead was the place from which the Snake emerged. It retracted itself from its hole, curling around and around the group of four until they were encased in the Snake’s wall of flesh, no light penetrating it. Its head emerged from the coils and turned to face them.
“Speak,” Lubomir declared.
The Snake opened its yard-wide eyes and flicked its forked tongue.
“Bring,” it said, “the corpse of Kash Imo.”