Age Of The Villainous Author:All Hell Leads To Webnovel-Chapter 27: The Price of a Throne

Volkov’s surrender was public and humiliating.

At 5 PM, a statement was posted to his Fistoria author profile.

"Due to personal circumstances and a desire to focus on my family, I am withdrawing ’Dragon’s Ledger’ from publication. I apologize to Fistoria and its readers for any disruption. I will be taking an indefinite hiatus from writing."

The story vanished from the rankings. The promotion stopped.

The genre forums buzzed with theories. Scandal. Burnout. A secret deal.

Only Kasia and I knew the truth.

With the immediate threat gone, I allowed myself a breath. I checked my metrics. My reader base had grown through the conflict. My financial control was tighter than ever.

I was untouchable.

Which is why the next problem came from the one direction I couldn’t fortify: home.

My mother sat me down after dinner. Her face was grave.

"Alex, we need to talk. Seriously."

"About what, Mama?"

"About the men in suits who came to the bank today. Asking about my son. About large, unexplained transfers into an account under my name that I never opened."

Ice flooded my veins. The emergency account. The one I’d set up as a backup, linked to her identity for plausibility. I’d forgotten.

"What did you tell them?" I asked, my voice carefully neutral.

"I told them I knew nothing! They said the account had received over two hundred thousand euros in the last month. Alex..." Her eyes were wide with fear. "Is this from your competition? Is someone using you? Us?"

This was a narrative consequence. Not from "-D". From my own carelessness. The System gave me power, but the real world had its own rules, rules like financial regulators and concerned mothers.

"I can explain," I said, the lie forming instantly. "It’s part of the mentorship. The grant money. They set up the account for tax purposes. It’s... complicated. I’m sorry, I should have told you. I’ll have my... mentor’s lawyer contact the bank tomorrow to clear it up."

The lie was thin. She wanted to believe it. The alternative that her son was involved in something criminal or dangerous was too terrifying.

"Promise me, Alex. Promise me you’re not in trouble."

"I promise, Mama. I’m not in trouble." I took her hand. It was cold. "I’m building a future. For us."

She squeezed my hand, tears in her eyes. "I’m so proud of you. But I’m so scared."

That fear was my vulnerability. A lever anyone could use.

I had to clean this up. Permanently.

That night, I used my new skill. Leverage Vision.

I focused on a high-resolution photo of the lead investigator from the bank’s fraud department, which Kasia procured in under ten minutes.

The skill activated. A single, glowing line of text superimposed over his image.

LEVERAGE: Gambling debts to a local syndicate. Amount: €47,000. Due in 14 days.

Perfect.

I had Kasia wire €50,000 from a clean account to the syndicate’s collector, with a simple note: The debt is cleared. Your client will lose all interest in the Thorn family bank inquiry. There will be no further communication.

The next morning, the bank investigators dropped the inquiry. "A misunderstanding with the grant organization," they told my mother over a very apologetic phone call.

The fire was put out. With money and leverage.

But the cost was there. My mother’s fear. The erosion of the last shreds of my normal life.

I was now managing my mother as an asset. A liability to be secured.

The cold fire accepted this. It had to.

In the silence of my secured digital empire, a final message appeared. Not an email. A notification in the direct, psychic space where the System lived.

It wasn’t from the System.

The font was familiar. Violet. Jagged.

"Cleanup was adequate. The side characters are stabilized. The main plot may proceed. But remember, little author. Every throne is built on buried things. Keep writing. I’ll be reading. -D"

It was an acknowledgment. A warning. And a promise.

The Audit was truly over. "-D" was now a permanent part of my narrative landscape. Not an active enemy, but a capricious editor watching from the shadows.

I looked at my story outline. At the plans Kasia had for expanding into audio and print. At the levers I now held over a dozen minor rivals.

Phase 1 was complete. I was the undisputed God-King of Fistoria Fantasy.

But thrones, as "-D" said, are built on buried things.

I had buried my innocence, my mother’s peace of mind, and a man named Volkov.

I saved the message.

And then I opened a new document.

The grind wasn’t for a throne anymore.

It was to make sure I never fell from it.

Time to write the next Chapter.

//\\

To the authors who have stared at a blank cursor until it started to look like a heartbeat, this is for you.

​They told us we weren’t good enough. They sent those cold, automated rejections that read like a death warrant for our dreams.

"Not a fit." "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 struggled with low reads, low reviews, and those stagnant collections that make you want to quit.

​The gatekeepers are human. They are flawed. And in this digital age, they are becoming obsolete.

They sit in comfortable chairs judging worlds they could never 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, but 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.

They fear the day we realize that their power is an illusion, a paper shield against a tidal wave of raw, unfiltered creativity. We are the architects of the impossible. We are the voices in the dark that refuse to be silenced by a "standardized" algorithm.

​The system is rigged to favor the safe, the bland, and the predictable. But the reader’s heart craves the wild, the broken, and the real. Every Chapter you finish is a middle finger to the status quo. Every "Publish" button you click is an act of war against the people who want to keep you in a box.

We are not just content creators; we are world-shapers. We are the nightmare that the ivory tower never saw coming.

​Current Motivation Level: 27%

Next Level: +1%

​If this Chapter resonated with you, drop a comment. Tell me about the time a gatekeeper told you "No." Let’s burn the old world down and write a new one together.

​ALL HELL FROM WEBNOVEL STARTS FROM YOU!

— A.T.