Panic is a luxury.
I had five minutes of it. Sitting in the silence, feeling the void where my skills used to live. The utter vulnerability.
Then, the cold fire re-ignited. Fanned by pure, incandescent rage.
-D thought he could break me by playing fair?
Fine.
I'd show him what a cornered animal with a million dollars and a loyal lieutenant could do.
First, I contacted Kasia. The compulsion was still active—the effect remained, even if my connection to it was gone. She was still mine.
Me: Emergency protocol. My… capabilities are under maintenance for one week. We operate manually. Priority one: "Goblin Coin Hegemon." I want it buried.
Kasia: Understood. Its growth is anomalous. I am already analyzing.
I could almost hear her furious typing.
Next, I assessed my mortal tools.
Money: ~$1.8 million.
Kasia: A fanatically loyal insider with editor privileges.
My brain: Still the one that wrote a bestseller.
My readers: A massive, devoted army.
I didn't need magic to fight a war. I needed strategy.
I pulled up the rival story. It was now #6. The comments were still freakishly positive. No dissent. The Aura of Deterrence wouldn't work on this—it was System-enhanced.
But my Financial Intuition, a passive boost, still worked. I focused on the story's structure. The feeling I got was clear: Fragile. One-trick. Reliant on external pump.
It was all gimmick. No substance.
The plan formed. Ugly. Direct. Mortal.
I called Kasia.
"Use your privileges. Flag the first ten chapters of 'Goblin Coin Hegemon' for a manual plagiarism check. Use the broadest algorithm. Mismatch a few sentences from public domain goblin lore if you have to. Initiate a 48-hour review. That freezes its algorithm boost."
"Understood," she said. I could hear the savage smile in her voice.
Next, I went to my reader Discord server, which I barely glanced at. I typed a message as Chronos_Architect.
"Hey everyone. Noticed a new story rocketing up. 'Goblin Coin Hegemon.' Has anyone read it? The growth seems… inorganic. Feels like the kind of bot-driven push that hurts real authors. Just a thought."
I didn't accuse. I planted a seed of suspicion.
Within minutes, the hive mind mobilized.
"My cousin read it, said it was super generic."
"The comment section looks sus."
"Let's go check it out and leave honest reviews."
A wave of my most passionate fans—my "Chroniclers"—descended on the story. They left detailed, critical reviews. Not hate. Analysis. Pointing out plotholes, weak prose, derivative tropes.
The perfect, positive comment section shattered under a wave of legitimate criticism.
The story's retention rate, once a perfect vertical line, developed its first kink.
My money came next. I hired, through Kasia's contacts, a small group of freelance webnovel analysts. Their public task: publish a report on "suspicious ranking patterns." Their private task: dig into every trace of the author.
Meanwhile, I wrote.
Without Reader's Insight, it was just me and the page. It was terrifying. And exhilarating.
I wrote a chapter of pure, unadulterated payoff. A major villain defeated. A huge power unlocked for the protagonist. I ended on a triumphant, soaring note.
I published it.
The organic reaction was immense. Power stones rained down. The comments were a celebration.
It was a reminder: I was good at this.
The day ended with a small victory. Kasia messaged.
"Plagiarism review initiated. Ranking frozen at #6. My freelance diggers found a link: the dummy wallets funding the story's promotion trace back to a shell corporation registered in Luxembourg. The same corporate structure has tenuous links to… a private equity firm that tried a hostile takeover of Vortex Media last year."
My Financial Intuition hummed. Connection.
The rival wasn't just a cosmic joke. It was a tool. Maybe "-D" had hijacked a pre-existing corporate scheme, or maybe a rival businessman had made his own deal with a darker entity.
This wasn't just an audit. It was a corporate raid with supernatural support.
I looked at the countdown in my mind. A week without skills.
166 hours to go.
I had drawn first blood. I had used bureaucracy, money, and my community as weapons.
But "-D" had shown he could change the rules of reality with a thought.
He was the editor.
I was just the author trying to keep my story from being canceled.
I closed my eyes, the cold fire burning low and steady.
The mortal grind was the hardest grind.
And I was just getting started.
//-\\
To my fellow authors in the trenches:
They told us we weren't good enough. They sent the cold, automated emails. "Not a fit for our current line-up." "Lacks marketability."
Every time you see Alex Thorn crush an editor in this story, remember: this isn't just fiction.
This is the scream of every writer who stayed up until 3:00 AM pouring their soul into a document that the world ignored. It is for everyone who has ever struggled with low reads, low reviews, low comments, and those painful, stagnant low collections that make you want to quit.
The gatekeepers are human. They are flawed. And in the digital age, they are becoming obsolete.
They sit in their comfortable chairs judging worlds they could never even imagine, let alone build. They look at spreadsheets while we look at the stars.
We don't write for the approval of a corporate board in a glass office. We write for the person scrolling on their phone at a bus stop, looking for a world better than their own.
We write for the ones who need an escape from a life that feels like a dead end.
If you have a manuscript sitting in a folder named "Draft 1" that you're too afraid to post—post it right now.
Stop waiting for permission to exist. If you've been rejected ten times, go for the eleventh. Use their "No" as fuel for your fire.
Alex Thorn had to die to get his second chance. You don't. You just have to keep typing until your fingers bleed and your vision blurs. The industry thinks they hold the keys. They forgot that we are the ones who build the doors in the first place.
Let them call us "cringe." Let them call us "amateurs." While they talk, we build. While they judge, we evolve into something they can't control.
Current Motivation Level: 19%
Next Level: +1%
If this chapter resonated with you, drop a comment. Tell me about the time a gatekeeper told you "No."
ALL HELL FROM WEBNOVEL STARTS FROM YOU!
— A.T.