The article on The Unvarnished Quill went live at midnight.
By 7 AM, Kasia's first report arrived.
"Initial reaction in his private writing group: Shock. Four members have already left the group. One posted: 'I always thought his critiques were too harsh. Now I see why.'"
By noon, a second report.
"He has posted a frantic, defensive response on the forum. It is poorly written. Emotional. He is being mocked. The moderator 'BookWormAna' has publicly asked him to 'take a break for his mental health.'"
I checked CriticKing's Fistoria profile. His review activity had stopped dead. For the first time in two years, he wasn't spamming one-star ratings.
The silence was more telling than any rant.
I wanted to see the crack up close. I used my main Fistoria account to leave a single, polite comment on his last vicious review of my Chapter 41.
Chronos_Architect: "Dear CriticKing, I read your review. I also read 'The Unvarnished Quill's' piece. I must say, it offers a fascinating perspective on the critic's lens. I hope you find peace in your own creative journey."
It was the digital equivalent of pouring salt into an open wound while offering a bandage.
I imagined him seeing it. The seething, helpless rage. The complete inversion of his power dynamic.
My Skill Synchronization pulsed faintly. From Kasia. A clear wave of amusement/satisfaction.
She was enjoying the show as much as I was.
I spent the afternoon writing. The Stamina Boost was a game-changer. Mental fatigue was a distant concept. I finished two complex chapters, then outlined the next major story arc. Reader's Insight showed near-perfect engagement graphs.
My Fistoria ranking wasn't just #1. I was beginning to lap the field.
At 4 PM, Kasia sent the final report. A screenshot.
It was from the forum. A post by Tomasz Wójcik.
Subject: Farewell.
Body: I am leaving this community. My insights are clearly not wanted. The world prefers shallow praise to honest criticism. I wish you all the best with your mediocre stories.
It was a spectacular, self-pitying flame-out.
The comments below were a mix of pity and relief.
"Bye, Tomasz."
"Honestly, it was getting toxic."
"Maybe focus on your own writing?"
He had deleted his account an hour later.
CriticKing was dead.
Operation: Mirror's Truth was a complete success. He wasn't just humiliated; his entire fragile online identity was obliterated. A toxic voice in my ecosystem, silenced.
[TENSEI SYSTEM: MILESTONE]
[PUBLIC HUMILIATION OF A MALICIOUS ACTOR ACHIEVED]
[REPUTATION WITHIN FANBASE INCREASED: 'PROTECTIVE']
[REWARD: 'AURA OF DETERRENCE' (PASSIVE)]
[DESCRIPTION: Readers who approach your work with intent to leave malicious, non-constructive feedback will experience a strong subconscious aversion. They will close the page or navigate away before completing the action.]
Another passive defense skill. The System was building fortifications around my empire, brick by psychic brick.
I wouldn't just be untouchable by rivals. My very story would be repellent to bad-faith hate.
I messaged Kasia.
Me: The critic is silenced.
Kasia: Permanently. His IP shows no further activity on any major literary platform. He has been erased.
Me: Good work. What's the next largest obstacle?
Kasia: The platform itself. Fistoria's corporate leadership. They are pleased with your performance, but they see you as an asset. A commodity. They will soon try to renegotiate your Silver contract for more favorable terms for them. Their legal team is drafting clauses.
Me: And how do we handle that?
Kasia: We make you indispensable. We make your success their only success. I am preparing a dossier. Your story now accounts for 18% of all Fantasy genre traffic on Fistoria. Next month, it will be 30%. We will own the genre. Then, we negotiate from a throne, not a begging bowl.
A shiver of pure ambition went through me. This was the next level.
Not just beating rivals or critics.
But co-opting the very platform that hosted me. Turning the cage into a palace.
From a king to an emperor.
Me: Send me the dossier. Let's plan.
A new file arrived. Charts, graphs, traffic projections, revenue impact analyses. It was a blueprint for a soft corporate takeover. A silent coup by metrics.
I was no longer just writing a webnovel.
I was writing the rules of the game. And soon, I'd own the casino.
The feeling was heady. Unreal. I had just broken a man without leaving my chair, and now I was plotting to subdue a corporation.
The cold fire in my chest burned with a serene, blue intensity.
Later, as I shut down my laptop, my phone buzzed with an email notification.
I glanced at it idly.
The sender address was a string of gibberish: [email protected]
The subject line was blank.
I opened it.
The body contained a single line of text.
"The little author is playing with bigger toys than he understands. -D"
My blood turned to ice water.
It wasn't from Kasia. The address was nonsensical. The tone was all wrong.
Playful. Menacing. Alien.
Anville's communication had been bored, direct, almost clinical. This felt like a cat watching a mouse build a nest out of razor blades.
-D.
Who the hell was D?
Another Wishbearer? Something else? Another layer to this game I hadn't been told about?
A primal instinct, deeper than the System's code, screamed in the base of my skull: THREAT.
This wasn't part of the grind. This wasn't a rival author or a bitter critic or a corporate suit.
This was something from the same black cosmos that had spat out Anville.
I saved the email. Didn't reply. Couldn't reply—the address was clearly a dead end.
I walked to the window of my dark room. Warsaw's city lights glittered, cold and distant.
I looked at my reflection in the glass. The cold fire in my eyes met my gaze. But for the first time since my rebirth, I saw a flicker of something else in the depths.
Not fear.
But the sharp, focused awareness of a predator who has just caught the scent of a larger, unknown predator on the wind.
The game board was bigger than I knew.
And I was still learning the pieces.
The crown on my head felt suddenly lighter. More fragile.
"-D," I whispered to the silent glass.
The name, or the initial, meant nothing to me.
But the promise in that sentence meant everything.
The playtime was over.
//-\\
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: 15%
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.