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The original was posted on /r/hfy by /u/Determination7 on 2024-09-07 09:24:53+00:00.

What shocked Ciro most of all wasn’t merely their grasp of his Talent. Others had also learned of it at various points in time – only for them to be disposed of shortly thereafter. While he’d put effort into keeping his Talent a secret, its usage always came with a risk of discovery. It wasn’t unreasonable that the knowledge had slipped under the gaze of his ever-watchful eye.

Rather, it was the way in which the Detective had described the word that sent a chill down his spine.

'Gravity…’ Ciro bit his lip in frustration. 'The science from the World of Ink. The detective is a worthless elf clinging onto life thanks to the Grandmaster’s Talent – she is of no importance. Did the Little Painter inform her of the concept of gravity? If not, then how is she aware of it? Or did the First Painter…no, he wouldn’t betray the Imperial Family.’

An infuriating, horrifying thought came to him, driving enough fury into his heart that Ciro drew blood from biting his lip before his Realm healed him. “Who is your source, elf?” he demanded. "Is it the Second Painter? The Dark Sorcerer?"

The bird’s only response was a cackling laughter. “Now why would I bother telling you that, Your Highness?”

Ciro’s first thought was to consider collapsing the entire city into a small, dense sphere, destroying it to prevent his secret from spreading.

It was the Lord Talent that saved him from this fatal mistake, allowing him to process information far faster than how time passed in the world around him.

'It was always a possibility the rebels would learn of my Talent after my meeting with the Little Painter,’ he thought. 'But I assumed he had missed the clues. Why else would they still confront me with this knowledge, then? They must understand that I am invulnerable. Why–’

With a start, the Emperor glared at ravens before him. Disgust surged within as his mind caught up to Tenver’s memories. “You…are the Puppet Detective, are you not?”

The largest of the ravens, biggest among all birds present, put its left wing across its chest, as if bowing. “My name is Valeria, Your Highness. Consulting detective!”

“These ravens and crows…that is the Grandmaster’s Talent, is it not? Should I assume that the Mines have sided with the rebels?”

“Ah, no, no my lord!” Valeria replied. “Rest assured, the Mines still side with the Empire. This treachery is mine and mine alone – or at least, not the Grandmaster’s. I shall be executed for my theft of the Communication Ravens, surely.”

The Emperor cursed as he reached inside Tenver’s memory and searched for an explanation. 'The Little Painter gave her citizenship. She is content to commit treason, believing that she can escape the Mines and take refuge inside Penumbria.’

Ciro’s fist tightened its grip onto itself, drawing his own blood for the second time. 'Whether the Grandmaster is turning a blind eye to this treachery, hoping for my downfall, or was genuinely outwitted by this girl…doesn’t matter right now. What matters is–’

“If I destroy the city,” Ciro pondered aloud, his voice surprisingly calm, “you intend to use these ravens to transmit sight of it to City Lords.”

“Aye!” the Detective Raven exclaimed, spreading both wings wide as if fluttering a cape. “And that would be a problem for you, would it not?”

'Insolent commoner!’

The Raven cackled. “Your public reasoning for attacking Lord Adam is that he’s a Pretender to Aspreay’s title. Considering how he’s not in Penumbria, massacring it would be quite…pointless, don’t you think? I wonder if your vassals would still choose to follow you then.”

They wouldn’t. Some out of pride, some out of a delusional grandeur that they could survive his wrath. Death would visit them easily – but the Orbs I’d lose!

Ciro simply couldn’t have that. And yet, unnervingly so, the detective’s invisible sword of truth was aimed precisely at that exact weak point.

Valeria’s strike had dealt the first real damage Ciro had received since his assassination of his brother. For the first time since crossing blades with Gregorio, for the first time ever after acquiring the Lord Talent, the Emperor felt uneasy. His mind raced faster than ever as he came to comprehend the dilemma they’d placed him in.

Another raven spoke up. This one, surprisingly, had Tenver’s voice. “Your Talent of Gravity is the world’s most dangerous weapon of destruction, my dear uncle…yet also the most useless.”

The Valeria-Raven flew up to face the Tenver-Raven, rubbing its beak thoughtfully. “That’s right!” she said, in a parody of abrupt realization. “Increasing gravity to a degree that devastated the land itself would cause irreparable collateral damage, yes?”

“Most definitely,” Tenver replied, just as pompously. Both birds bowed, enunciating as if they were the leading actors in a theater play. “Can you think of anything capable of stopping gravity from destroying the very user that wields it, Valeria?”

“Allow me a second of thought.” The raven tilted its head dramatically, then whipped it back nary a moment later. “Ah! Could it be…a Lord’s Realm?”

“Aye!” Tenver replied, clapping its wings in an eerie echo of an applause. “So now you see why he had to assassinate my father – to inherit his Lord Talent!”

On that last point, Ciro disagreed. Gregorio’s death had been for the sake of the Empire, not for his own personal power. But they were otherwise correct.

The Lord Talent should’ve been mine, anyhow. Reclaiming my birthright is no crime. Criminal is the man who stole it before I was alive!

Gravity was an almighty Talent, yet not one that could be used safely. In the rare occasions when someone displayed the ability, they endeavored not to use it beyond its lowest ranks, and rarely obtained enough Orbs to improve it. Very rarely, when someone did improve their control of it…they invariably ended up dead by their own hand.

What good was an ability that made your body denser than your bones could endure? What benefit was there in collapsing an entire army into a black hole if doing so would shatter the very Painted World? Although that last scenario was mere theory – those Talented who dared to use the ability of Gravity would perish before wreaking such havoc.

The Lord Talent, however…the Lord Talent changed all that.

With the Noble Guard, Ciro could survive the immediate effect of any sudden gravitational change. Perhaps more importantly, Royal Orders allowed him to shape his Realm’s Laws, letting him create small pockets of reality so that his Gravity wouldn’t affect anything except for the areas he so designated.

In the hands of any other, the Talent of Gravity was but a self-destructive explosive. In the hands of the one above fate itself?

It became a weapon that could shape reality itself.

Ciro was immune to Gravity’s adverse side-effects, able to manifest his Talent only where necessary. An errant arrow would always be too light to pierce his body. A peasant’s raised blade would always feel too heavy when pointed at their god. And even if this almighty defense were to fail, Ciro’s Realm, which expanded throughout the entirety of the known world, would heal him of any injuries.

Death bent the knee before him – and thus its avatars served him beneath the name of Hangmen.

It was how he had killed the raven earlier. First by ordering the area around him to be made separate from the outside world, and then by using Gravity to essentially annihilate that area of existence. Even right now, he was manipulating the gravity around his body in order to protect himself from any acts of physical harm.

Upon acquiring the Talent of a Lord, Ciro, The Man That Made Gravity Kneel, had also acquired another title, One that only Valente’s ears had ever been blessed with the chance to hear.

The Man Who Not Even Death Can Touch.

He was invulnerable, invincible, indestructible…

And yet–!

And yet…today, this magnificent strength of his, the strength that he had earned through the blood flowing through his veins…

Could kill neither Tenver nor Penumbria.

'You use your weakness as a shield, Nephew! That pathetic, miserable–’

“You need Orbs,” said Tenver’s crow, cackling eerily. “Your goals, whatever they are, need Orbs – this much we know. And your vassals know this as well. Even though you could destroy any city within the Empire, doing so would reduce your ever-so-important revenue stream of Orbs.”

Ciro muttered a curse under his breath. Orbs were vital; the lifeblood of his life’s work, each gem a step toward the future he needed to build. He couldn’t afford to lose even a single Orb more than necessary. Not when the Dragon’s machines already cost so much.

I need the economy to prosper, he thought furiously, for the sake of my dream!

The Emperor stepped forward, crushing more crows beneath his gravity. “Doing so would promote you from a mere failure to a baneful toxin that must be erased, Nephew.” His tone was cold as winter. “Have you no mind for what my design would bring? I am the Painted World’s last hope!”

“Then let us embrace despair!” Valeria declared theatrically. “My dear beacon of hope – need I remind you that justification was required for declaring war upon Adam, lest you incur a rebellion? Destroying an entire city is far beyond what your vassals could stomach. This is why you came here alone: so that there would be no witnesses.”

Tenver nodded in assent. "If your vassa…

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