Age Of The Villainous Author:All Hell Leads To Webnovel-Chapter 38: Paper Trails and Power Plays

Joanna emerged from the shower twenty minutes later.

Hair wet. Makeup reapplied. Wearing yesterday’s blouse and skirt but no panties. I could tell.

She sat at the table. Poured coffee. Black. Strong.

Business mode.

Kasia was already dressed fresh blouse and pencil skirt from the overnight bag she kept here now. She sat beside Joanna. Close. Territorial.

I stayed in a robe. Open at the chest. Let them look.

"First order," I said. "Chronos Canon Holdings is incorporated as of 9:14 this morning. Kasia handled the paperwork overnight. Joanna—you’re now listed as General Counsel. Salary starts at €180,000. Equity vesting begins in six months."

Joanna raised an eyebrow. "Generous."

"Earn it."

She nodded. "What’s the immediate priority?"

"Fistoria’s clause 7.12b," I said. "We need a strategy to neuter it before any adaptation deals close. I want options, legal, financial, reputational. Make it expensive for them to ever try to enforce."

Joanna opened her laptop. Fingers flew.

"Option one: public pressure. Leak selected clauses to industry blogs. Frame it as predatory. Create noise. Force Fistoria to amend TOS voluntarily."

"Too slow," I said.

"Option two: parallel entity. Chronos Canon registers the IP in multiple jurisdictions—EU, US, offshore. Creates conflicting claims. Any attempt to enforce becomes a jurisdictional nightmare."

"Better."

"Option three: buy influence. Identify board members with vulnerabilities. Leverage.

I smiled. "Now you’re thinking like us."

Kasia leaned in. "We can combine two and three. Quiet leverage on key directors. Public pressure as the stick if they don’t bend."

Joanna typed notes. "I’ll need access to internal Fistoria financials. Board compensation. Personal holdings. Anything that can be weaponized."

"You’ll have it," Kasia said. "By end of day."

Joanna looked between us. "This is... bigger than I expected."

"It is," I said. "And it’s only the beginning."

She closed the laptop. Met my eyes.

"Last night... was that part of the compensation package?"

I stood. Walked around the table. Stopped behind her chair.

My hand settled on her shoulder. Thumb brushed the side of her neck.

"Last night was the interview," I said. "This is the job."

She shivered under my touch.

Kasia stood. Moved to Joanna’s other side.

Her hand rested on Joanna’s thigh. Slid upward. Under the skirt.

No resistance.

Joanna parted her legs slightly.

Kasia’s fingers found bare skin. Slid higher.

Found her wet again.

"Already?" Kasia murmured.

Joanna’s breath hitched. "Apparently."

I leaned down. Kissed the side of her neck.

"You’re part of the foundation now," I said against her skin. "We protect what’s ours."

Kasia’s fingers slipped inside.

Joanna moaned. Soft. Controlled.

I kissed her mouth.

She kissed back. Hungry.

We took her again right there on the conference table.

Slower this time.

More deliberate.

Kasia ate her out while I fucked her mouth.

Then I took her from behind while Kasia kissed her.

Joanna came twice.

Quiet. Intense. Professional even in orgasm.

When it was done, we straightened our clothes.

Joanna fixed her hair in the reflection of the glass wall.

"Send me the board dossiers," she said. Voice steady again. "I’ll have a full strategy brief by Monday."

I nodded.

She picked up her bag.

Paused at the door.

Looked back.

"Thank you," she said. "For the opportunity."

Then she left.

Kasia turned to me.

"She’s perfect," she said.

"She is."

I pulled Kasia close.

Kissed her deeply.

The empire was expanding.

And so were the bedsheets.

Outside, Warsaw glittered.

Inside, the foundations were hardening.

One woman at a time.

//\\

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: 38% 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

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.