Saddam Hussein had been cast down from the heavens. Once the dictator of Iraq, he now ruled over naught but a hole in the ground with an air vent and a fan, its entrance hidden by bricks and rubble. Laying in his tomb like a Sumerian god-king of old, he had nothing better to do than think. And his mind kept returning to a ripple he had felt in October. Hibiscuses kept blooming in his mind as he saw visions of a young girl in Nigeria living in an abusive household. It was a book of some sort, he was sure of that. After much meditation, he deduced that it was called Purple Hibiscus, and that it had been published in October 2003.

This was his first awakening. The sheer mental force of will required to figure out the book’s title caused him to ascend to the first Hibiscan rank, that being Amaka rank. From there, he further felt the Hibiscan currents. The book being released and the subsequent rise of people like him gaining mental abilities from understanding it was truly a fascinating phenomenon.

He developed his ability to the point where he could sense if American soldiers were near. He managed to successfully disrupt their efforts to find him by sending out waves of Hibiscan energy to his former followers the Americans were interrogating, pushing them to say nothing. As he used this newfound Hibiscan energy to influence the world, he found himself being able to crudely reach out and affect physical things as well. He further secured the entrance to his cave, burying himself deeper and deeper, the rock and dirt molding around his touch.

The Americans couldn’t find him now. He was left alone to cultivate. Saddam Hussein no longer desired wealth and material possessions, instead seeking only to advance his knowledge of the Holy Book.

Over the next few decades, he reached Father Amadi rank and then Papa-Nnukwu rank. But after getting to peak tier of said rank, he was stuck. His progression had stopped. He had reached the pinnacle of what he realized was called the Blue Realm, but couldn’t advance.

Saddam Hussein instead contented himself with feeling the Hibiscan energy waves and observing the state of the world. The world was absorbed in chaos as so-called “cultivators” like him fought for supremacy. The countries of old collapsed and were replaced with Hibiscan Sects.

As he observed this never-ending chaos, he slowly understood the reality of power and of leadership. Emerging “demon cultivator” sects were typically led by tyrannical, power-hungry bastards. They reminded Saddam Hussein of himself, and he realized his actions as dictator of Iraq were probably bad. While undergoing this crisis of self, he steadied himself by looking to those benevolent sect leaders, those that protected the weak and led their sects to great heights.

His second awakening was when he understood that the next Realm would be red, like the red hibiscuses in Eugene’s lawn. His breakthrough in Purple Hibiscology was that the next realm would be opposite yet equal to the first, different yet similar. Red was a color commonly seen as being in opposition to blue, but wasn’t its exact opposite (after all, they weren’t complimentary colors). Furthermore, a similarity was that they were both primary colors.

If the Blue Realm involved the careful intellectual study of Hibiscan knowledge, then the Red Realm would likely involve the attuning of oneself to Purple Hibiscus through combat. But how would he do that? Who would he fight? The answer was himself.

He could pit his own golems of stone against each other, refining their martial techniques and eventually trying them out for himself. It was a crude solution, and one that progressed his cultivation at an agonizingly slow pace. But it did work. After hundreds of years, he made it past the Red Realm and into the Purple Realm, reaching Jaja rank.

A few years passed, and a sense of foulness increased. Someone was corrupting the Hibiscan energies of the world.

While attuned to the Hibiscan frequencies, he couldn’t make out people’s conversations except for a few words here and there. And one word was repeated over and over again: Eugene. That was the name of the demon cultivator disrupting the Hibiscan harmony. Entombed in his underground prison, Saddam Hussein felt the loss of billions of people ring out in the Hibiscan waves. Eugene had grown in power. And in one moment, it all vanished. Any sign of Eugene was gone from the world.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Saddam Hussein pondered the mystery for a long while, trying to feel out what had happened. He came to the conclusion that Eugene simply vanished, likely passing into the secondary dimension of time. Saddam Hussein had become aware of the second dimension of time only a few years before Eugene vanished.

Saddam Hussein could briefly move “up” or “down” (as he conceptualized it) in time, before being snapped back to his normal space in the time flow. When doing so, he was completely cut off from Hibiscan emanations. It was not a stretch to assume that Eugene might have gone in the timeless realm too, if not traveling to the far future or far past somehow. What else would explain the instantaneous vanishing of his demon essence? Even if he died, some of it would have lingered for a time.

Saddam Hussein turned his attention back to cultivation, and decades passed. His ascendance through tiers had slowed, but at an agonizing snail’s pace, he reached Eugene rank. A few decades after that, he felt profound Hibiscan waves. Someone had reached the rank above Eugene! Saddam pushed onwards in his cultivation, spurred on by that great cultivator!

Even more decades passed, and Saddam Hussein reached Kambili rank and had his third revelation. For, upon achieving that highest rank, he realized how low it actually was. He understood, deep in his soul, that the lifespan of a Kambili rank cultivator was finite, and that he would almost certainly die before he reached whatever rank was above that.

Thus, Saddam Hussein withdrew from the Hibiscan currents of the outside world and focused on the earth that enveloped him. He was very familiar with transmutation of Hibiscan essence, but had never experimented with what would happen if he let himself fully give in to the rock. He turned his Hibiscan energy into all types of rock, stone, earth, clay, sand, and silt. He was the ground and the ground was him.

His fourth and final understanding came while he immersed himself in the earth. Transmuting his Hibiscan essence into stone slowed the pulsating of his aura, slowed his breath, and slowed his heartbeat. Cellular processes crawled along at fractions of their previous speed. Saddam Hussein could slow his own aging down to nearly nothing. Finally, he had found a way to temporarily counter the curse of mortality and extend his lifespan. He drifted off to a deep hibernation, honored among the earth.

In his deep sleep, his thoughts drifted, formless. He knew on some level that he was coping, only delaying the inevitable. After all, he had carved his hiding place out of the Earth to hide from his problems, hide from the consequences of his actions as dictator of Iraq. Now, he was repeating that, except he was hiding from a more fundamental consequence of life itself: that of inevitable death.

There in the stone he lay, until something caused him to shift in his sleep. Evil Hibiscan waves permeated him, but such was his state of sleep that it took a week for his metabolism to slowly speed up to normal as his mind subconsciously registered the disturbance. He was awoken by a tsunami in the Hibiscan ripples that permeated the world. The twisted demon essence was unmistakable. Eugene had returned.

Saddam Hussein woke up. He had to warn the world. Bursting out of his prison and seeing the sun for the first time in a thousand years, he flew into the air. Saddum Hussein detached his Hibiscan essence, thrusting it forwards and down towards the ground, forming a pillar of stone. He used it as leverage to fling himself from, before re-absorbing the detached energy back into his main aura. He repeated this move several times in the span of a few seconds, flinging himself thousands of miles. He was traveling towards the largest concentration of Hibiscan energy he could detect, the enormous sect built atop the back of the great Heavenly Beast the Five-Headed Tortoise.

He careened towards his destination, and, as he was miles above the center of the sect, formed his Hibiscan essence into a wall of stone that he slammed against, halting his forward momentum. He fell towards a massive central courtyard of the sect atop the Tortoise. He slammed into the ground, creating an enormous crater. Thousands turned to look at him.

Everyone could feel his aura. His Hibiscan energy pulsated throughout the entire sect, radiating pure strength. It was obvious that he was a peak tier cultivator of Kambili rank.

Everyone fled in terror, while sentries teleported to warn the Sect Elders of the calamity that had descended on them.

“Eugene!” he shouted.

“Eugene has returned!”