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The Skill Thief's Canvas - Chapter 76 (Book 3 Chapter 15)
🕑 Added 2025-05-07 04:03:59 +0000 UTCCiro failed to stifle a yawn as he watched the sun slowly rise, his back turned to the unpleasant sight of his men slaughtering a legion of elven guards.
Honestly, their display of resistance was quite pathetic. Why would the elves bother trying to stop so many armed soldiers? Much wiser to surrender and run for now.
Although they needn't worry so much either way. He'd let them have their village back eventually – mayhaps even today, should the Painter's head be displayed on a pike.
"Blood ought not be spilled before one breaks their fast," the Emperor lamented, his voice sad and directed at no one in particular. "Duty comes first, unfortunately, and speed is imperative when dealing with the Pretender's lot. A more humane starting hour might give him time to escape and harm my pursestrings with a prolonged war."
Ciro wouldn't so much as blink at what needed to be done to fulfil the sacred oath he'd sworn to his people. He'd already killed his own brother, ordered the destruction of Puppet Mountain, conspired to enact the first elven massacre, and was now about to commence the second.
Most of all, he was even willing to wake early for this event, distasteful as the act may be.
"Bloody Painter," he muttered under his breath. "If not for you, I'd be asleep right now, or receiving tribute in bed. To hell with your impertinence."
Despite his grumbling, he'd left his carriage dressed in full Dragonforged Steel armor, save for his hands – which now held a set of tea as he basked in the sight of a warm sunrise during winter.
How useful that the elves' magic can forestall the colder seasons. He shifted his gaze from the rising sun toward the large tree in the middle of the city. Mayhaps I should cut it down and take it to the capital.
A distant scream grew louder and closer to him. "–DIE HUMAN–"
Ah, what was he saying? Something about revenge?
The Emperor sighed. How often did he have to listen to those? And why in the name of the Dragons did they think he'd pay attention to any of it?
Ciro was a man of two Talents. Both were of the 1st Rank – the Rank of Emperor. There was no need to exert himself for attacks that wouldn't be allowed to touch him.
Whatever many faults the Painted World may have had, it also had an ironclad law that brought a smile to his face: one cannot use a Talent to harm someone whose own Talent outranks theirs.
Oh, right, the elf. He didn't fully turn around, but did notice the splatter of blood on his armor. Poor bastard tried to use his Talent to attack me, it seems.
When Ciro ouranked all of them twice.
There were only three Emperor-Ranked Talents in this world. One of them belonged to the Grandmaster, cowardly hiding in the Puppet Mines. The other one was Valente, fighting on this very battlefield. Both bowed to Ciro's will and would never dare bare their fangs against him.
"–TODAY YOU PAY FOR–"
Now this suicidal elf would have grabbed his attention not long ago. They weren't using their Talent to attack, he saw, only a spear. Raw violence without a Talent could still theoretically harm him.
While Ciro's Realm covered the entirety of the known world, this very vastness was its own limitation. Noble Guard would heal his injuries, true, but he couldn't be certain of its speed or efficacy.
Could he still return from death like a regular lord? Could he come back from near-fatal injuries? Most likely, but he was not sure.
How could he be, when he hadn't been injured in over ten years?
"It is not I who is to blame for this, elf," Ciro said, his back still turned as he sipped at his tea. "Blame my nephew Tenver. Were it not for him, I would still be keeping the nature of my Talent a secret. I would have granted you the dignity of forcing me to dodge. Instead..."
A guttural scream pierced the air. It began sharp, prideful, certain – then twisted midair into a choking sound. The elf died knowing their desperation had been the only part of their charge to reach the Emperor.
Ciro still hadn't turned around.
With no reason to restrain himself anymore, Ciro saw it more efficient to have his Gravity Talent active at all times. Now he didn't summon it; he suppressed it, choosing what was afforded the mercy of normalcy.
The space around him was always heavy enough to shatter bones and flatten rock. Pressure pulled downward as though reality bent to his whims, like orbiting a collapsed star.
No one could even shake his hand without his explicit permission. His very carriage needed a Realm Law to be protected. Anyone who tried walking up to him would be judged by the very world they stood on...
And found unworthy.
Of course, his Gravity also protected him from arrows and other equally non-Talented violence. He wouldn't suffer an ignominious death like his brother had.
"A Talent can only be neutralized by a rival of the same Rank." Ciro spoke to the dead soldier as if his words could reach them.
He hoped they could. The thought of their anger brought a smile to his face. "Only I can rival myself. My Lord Talent counteracts my Talent of Gravity. Do you understand, creature, that if not for this, the entire Painted World could perish beneath the gravitational force of–"
Only now did he turn around and see the result of his work.
The soldier had died wrong. Bent too far, crushed from above, from below, from within, from without. Had Ciro not known it to once be a person – if elves could be called such – he would've been surprised that the pool of blood and distorted flesh was anything but ground beef gone rotten.
"I must say, this is ghastly work," he dryly noted. "I mislike the sight of it."
Yet who was to blame for letting lone soldiers reach him? They were the ones responsible for this repulsive spectacle. With a disappointed sigh, the Emperor swept his eyes across the battlefield, searching for the guilty party.
He found only chaos instead.
The Imperial soldiers were fighting perfectly, but it wasn't enough to prevent the maelstrom of confusion that arose from war. As far as Ciro could tell, the elven resistance was even breaking formation and starting to rout! His men were slicing through them like the inevitability of his victory.
But the village itself hadn't caught up yet – no smoke-choked skies, no shrieking collapse. That would come next.
That would come soon.
'Dear Pretender,' Ciro spoke in his mind. 'Large as my Realm may be, we are close enough to one another that you can hear my voice, yes?'
'If I allow it,' Adam's thoughts replied.
'Ah! How pleasantly surprising!' Ciro's Divine Knowledge hit resistance, a wall that shouldn't exist. Despite his Realm's size, very few Lords would've been able to reject his Divine Knowledge that way.
Evidently, this meant that the Frontier Cities' declaration of treason had come with an offering of Orbs to the Pretender – and that the boy hadn't hesitated in using it to improve his Rank.
'I know not your exact location, Little Painter, so I must ask you this. Have you witnessed the calamity I've brought upon the elves?'
There was a pause. 'Yes,' said Adam. Even as a thought, the word somehow sounded angry. 'You will stop it. Now.'
' I look forward to seeing if you can make me!' the Emperor joyfully replied. If that imbecilic nephew of his had ever accomplished anything worthy of note – and this was no certainty – then it was bringing Ciro a worthy opponent to match wits against.
Were all the beings from the World of Ink so unique? No, hardly so. Eric the Gryphon had been rather dull, despite his genius. A veritable wellspring of talent and Talent, yet wasted on the pettiness that had consumed his being.
But the Painter...
They were different.
''You see, I admire your masterful strategy at our last battle', Ciro continued. 'You conducted your soldiers wonderfully. Had your allocation of resources been any less efficient, Penumbria would have fallen.'
Another pause. 'Yes. It would have.' Ciro could feel the Pretender's mind stirring in...not quite anger. Pride? 'It didn't though, did it?'
'No,' the Emperor acknowledged. 'It did not.'
'Does it sting your pride, then? To have been outmatched by a mere commoner boy with zero experience in leading armies?'
'Aye, Painter, that it does.' Ciro projected the same feeling of confident derision back at the Painter. 'And here we will have our rematch! Do you know the terms?'
To the Emperor's surprise, Adam's response came without delay. 'Of course. Your goal is my head, Tenver's head, and Solara's head – in that order of importance. If you kill us here, you can avoid a lengthy, expensive war.'
'Correct,' Ciro affirmed. 'Your terms of victory would be to retreat back to Penumbria, where sheer numbers might force me to concede that an early attack is impossible.'
'It's a much simpler battle to plan for this time,' Adam thought. 'Last skirmish, there were too many factors to worry about. Today, it's only you and your Hangman. '
Ciro laughed, making an effort to communicate his amusement through Divine Knowledge to the Painter. 'Just me and Valente, you say. Do you think you could stop either of us – let alone both?'
'Don't know. Guess we'll find out.'
Through their mental bond, Ciro could tell two things. One, the Painter wasn't lying about his optimism or lack of certainty. Two, despite the odds stacked against him...
He wasn't nervous in the slightest.
'Fantastic.' It was difficult to find an opponent who appreciated the sport in a spectacle like this – who behaved like a proper rival. 'Let us begin, then!'
Ciro stalked forward, his boots pressing down the remnants of elven corpses into bloodied mud, showing less care than if he'd stepped onto spilled wine. The Emperor's eyes wandered around the battlefield, curious. Where was the counterstroke? The trick? The Painter always left his signature, and this work of his appeared too uncharacteristic.
'You have two people to stop – myself and Valente. Who did you allocate to fight me?'
Corpses shouldn't move.
The pool of crumbling flesh could hardly be even called a corpse to begin with.
Yet it stirred, it twitched, it crunched and unbent, shooting forward at him and backwards through time itself. A half-reformed arm lunged at him, the exposed bone sharpened into a weapon thrust into his direction.
Bone clipped his cheek, carving a thin line. He blinked and touched the wound – not out of pain, but interest.
'How did they reach past my gravity?' was the first question that arose in his mind. It wasn't the right one. 'Did that corpse just return to life?' was the second.
Judging from the elven woman standing across from him, bloodied yet somehow unharmed, it was the correct one.
"Heh. Knew you were a lazy little bitch," Solara said, teeth red, breath wrong, smile carved across her face. "Guess it would've been too much effort to make exceptions in your Realm Laws for every time you wanted to hold a teacup. The 'gravity wall' surrounding you is hollow, isn't it? Once you get through its border, the effect disappears."
She eyed him with an analytical gaze. "Judging by how long it took 'til your power killed me the first time, it's more of a sphere than a square. And considering how long it took me to come back to life as you walked away...maybe about a 5 meter radius?"
The woman wheezed, laughing through several misplaced organs. "Seems killable to me."
Ciro reached to his own cheek again, feeling it slowly heal. Far too slowly. I mustn't rely on my Lord Realm for defense, he realized. Too much of my Canvas is dedicated to automatic gravity – my Noble Guard has slowed in turn. Still, that is hardly a concern...even if an elf managed to scratch me.
He faced the wench who had dared to wound his face. "The Immortal Elf of Gama," Ciro said, his voice short and his eyebrows shooting upward. "Your Genius Realm does not inflict violence. Mayhaps that is how the Painter means to challenge me. Or is there more?"
"Well, I suppose there's me too," spoke a new voice.
A blade unsheathed – slow, sharp, threatening. The elven swordsman advanced, calm and composed, as if challenging the Emperor in the comfort of a dueling hall, rather than surrounded by the screams of his kind.
"But you must've expected that," said Nayt.
Ciro laughed. "Ah, splendid." His features relaxed at the familiar sight of the vengeful elven Hangman. "Is it this time of the year yet? Are you going to challenge me to a duel, lose, swear to win in the future and come back to work for me the next morning, Nayt?"
Here the Swordsman's expression surprised the Emperor. No longer were his eyes as hopeless and dead as they'd been over the past few years. By the Dragons, this wasn't even the furious, pained gaze he'd shown at the start of his service.
'Your eyes look like they did the first time you challenged me.'
Nayt had felt so much pride in himself and his abilities back then. He'd challenged the Emperor of the World with a brilliant spark of hope – with the naive innocence of someone who thought he could save his people with the swing of his blade.
Ciro's lips lowered into an imperceptible frown. 'I don't like it. Not one bit.'
"Afraid this won't be like our usual duels." Nayt's face tightened. "I...am done running. Done making excuses. This time, I'll finish things."
"You say that every time," Ciro taunted.
Yet even as he spoke them, he knew his words were empty. Just from the glint in Nayt's eyes, today already felt...different.
'Cursed be that Puppet,' he thought, recalling the Duelist who'd crossed blades with Nayt during the siege of Penumbria. His Hangman had never been the same afterwards. He'd started smiling more, sulking less, feeling more distant from Ciro than he'd ever been.
'I suppose this is as good a time as any to suck his venom out of you.'
Solara stood up and cracked her neck. "Tell your soldiers to get out of here." She fell into a fighting stance. 'Is that insane wench intending on engaging me in fisticuffs?' "It's just me and this bastard – two elves getting revenge for our kind. Don't waste time looking for others."
"Oh? My dear Nephew is not looking to fight me?" Ciro was impressed, albeit hardly surprised. Whatever evil the Painter had done, he was sensible enough.
But to make Tenver agree not to waste his life in a vain attempt at revenge... 'I'm surprised you convinced him he was too weak to fight me,' he told Adam through Divine Knowledge.
There was no response.
"My, my...just the both of you against me, and everyone else to stop Valente." Ciro shook his head and laughed uncontrollably for a while – before suddenly stopping to glare at the two elves. "I'm rather offended."
Ciro carefully expanded his gravitational shield – not in size, but in impact. At the limit of his invisible barrier, the ground sank deeply despite his Realm Law that protected the world from his Talent, creating a visible indentation of its area of effect.
"What's wrong, elves? Is this the best your kind can offer? Do you plan to stand in fear of my might?"
Although he kept his tone imperious as he mocked them, the Emperor's heart wasn't in it. He knew the two of them were barely trying right now.
Their goal wasn't to injure him. Divine Knowledge had confirmed as much.
'Even with all my practice, it still takes me five seconds to finish constructing my Palace.' Solara of Gama's thoughts were rapid, fast, and almost obsessed with murdering the Emperor, to a point where Ciro felt vaguely impressed. 'It's not violent, so it should work on the Emperor even if I'm more than a few Ranks below his Talent. But considering his abilities...he should be able to escape before I close it. I need an opening.'
'Should I use the treasure?' Nayt's thoughts were far more hesitant and unfocused. 'Solara was right. I don't deserve to use it. Even so...I want to avenge my people. But am I just making excuses to satisfy my ambition? Do I need a higher Rank to kill him? Ferrero the Duelist fought me on even terms despite his barely functional Talent.'
'He's the Emperor of the World! PLEASE – RUN! THE DARK CAPTAIN IS HERE TOO! YOU'VE DOOMED US BOTH!'
Ciro blinked. Now who did that panicked string of words belong to? It didn't match either elf standing before him. Intrigued, he narrowed down its location to the Undying Woman...but they still weren't her thoughts.
Then it occurred to him. 'Dear me, is that the Ghost of Flames? Lawrence told me he was meant to possess people, not be held as their hostage.'
Well, it mattered not. The curiosity of a Ghost being imprisoned within a mortal's Canvas was of no concern to him.
Nor did he need to pay undue attention to the elves' meager attempt at vengeance. A halfhearted use of Gravity should be sufficient to block their attacks. He would need to handle Solara of Gama's Genius Realm with a bit more care, but she could only try that monstrosity once before Staining her Canvas for the rest of the day.
No. This was all merely a distraction from the true object of his interest.
Anticipation building, Ciro diverted his mind's eye elsewhere – to the battle on Valente's flank. He observed it with the gaze of a man starved for entertainment.
'Let's see how this bold plan of yours is working out, Little Painter.'
--
Thanks for reading!
Comments
mark harrell
Great chapter. What I love about Skill Thief is how you integrate the rules of the world into the storytelling to do character work or give exposition. Divine Knowledge as a concept would be a TERRIBLE idea in the hands of lesser authors. But you are so good at writing *laterally* to have creative solutions to impossible problems without the work devolving into endless deus ex machina. Sick story
![[HOPE]](https://runfaps.com/kistorage/100331.jpg)
