*Content Warning: This chapter contains mature themes, violence, blood, and morally dark actions. Reader discretion advised.*
The God of Lightning ground his teeth together.
"Didn't you hear me?" he snarled. "Just who the hell are you?"
Leon's body tilted its head back toward the sky. The red eyes didn't focus on anything in particular; they simply stared into the clouds as if the world itself was a joke.
"How… how… how… how *amusing*," the thing inside him drawled. "This… this is so damn good. I'm **free**."
The head snapped back down, those blood‑red eyes locking onto the God of Lightning in an instant.
The god flinched before he could stop himself. His right arm trembled.
"H‑How is this possible…" he muttered. "I confirmed it. He was dead. Heart gone. Soul scattered. So why is he still moving?"
He looked closer.
"The way he speaks… the way he laughs… even the way his eyes watch me…" His expression darkened. "This isn't the same brat."
Then a thought hit him, cold and heavy.
"Don't tell me…" he breathed. "Did that brat already develop a Mind Demon? With growth that abnormal, it wouldn't be strange if one was born from it."
***
Across the Empire, people watched through mirrors, divinations, or bare eyes from afar.
"That's not the same boy," a noble stammered. "His aura… it feels wrong."
"Wrong?" another snapped. "It feels *evil*. Look at those eyes!"
In the palace, the Emperor leaned forward, face tight.
"So the rumors were true," he whispered. "A Mind Demon. The boy's own power bred a monster inside him."
The Empress's lips pressed into a thin line.
"If that thing truly came from Leon," she said, "then he was always a walking disaster waiting to happen. We just never saw the crack in the vessel."
Elsewhere, commoners muttered like background noise of the world.
"First he dies, now he stands again? Just what is he?"
"Is he cursed by a demon?"
"Idiot, that *is* the demon!"
"Shut up and keep watching. If that thing angers the god again, we might all die just from the aftershocks."
***
The God of Lightning drew in a slow breath, forcing calm over his rising unease.
"So," he said, eyes narrowing, "you're the Mind Demon."
The red‑eyed figure's smile widened, too sharp and too bright for Leon's face.
"Hmmm… Mind Demon… Mind Demon…" he repeated, rolling the term on his tongue. "You little gods always love sticking labels on things you don't understand."
His words came out half‑lazy, half‑deranged, like a drunk scholar lecturing in the middle of a slaughterhouse.
"But sure," he said cheerfully. "If it makes you feel safer, call me that. Mind Demon. The brat's hatred, greed, fear, and obsession… all wrapped up in something that doesn't know how to die properly."
Lightning curled tighter around the god. "You speak as if his body is yours now."
"'As if'?" The Mind Demon laughed, head tilting to the side, bone cracking audibly in his neck. "My dear god, *I am* this body right now. The brat's taking a nap. A very deep, very painful nap."
His gaze slid over the watching armies, the capital, the trembling priests.
"And you all…" he whispered, voice suddenly low. "You're the audience. Don't blink, or you'll miss the part where your god bleeds."
Murmurs spread faster than lightning.
"Did he just say the god will bleed?"
"Blasphemy!" a priest shouted, but even he stepped back.
In the palace, the Emperor's throat went dry.
"If that *thing* pushes the god too far," he muttered, "we might be erased along with it."
The Empress didn't look away from the mirror.
"Then pray," she said coldly, "that the god kills the demon faster than the demon can grow."
***
The God of Lightning's expression hardened.
"Arrogant parasite," he said. "You stole that boy's body and dare to stand before a god?"
"Stole?" The Mind Demon chuckled. "No, no. I was *born* here. Think of me as his… better half."
He spread Leon's arms wide, as if embracing the storm.
"Besides, you should be happy. The brat couldn't entertain you properly. I, on the other hand, am very good at making gods scream."
Thunder boomed.
"Then prove it," the god growled.
Lightning erupted from the sky, wrapping around his arms like armor. The ground under his feet fractured into glowing cracks.
The Mind Demon's grin sharpened.
"With pleasure."
***
They moved.
The God of Lightning vanished in a blur, reappearing right in front of the Mind Demon, fist already driving forward. "Thunderclap Step."
The Mind Demon's body flickered an instant later, copying the same blurring motion—rough, unstable, but fast enough to twist aside. The god's fist carved through afterimages, detonating the space where the demon had just been.
"Oh?" the Mind Demon laughed from behind him. "Nice trick. Feels familiar somehow."
A jagged bolt of lightning speared toward the god's spine—identical in structure to one of his own techniques, but tinted with a faint, sinister darkness.
The god spun, blocking with a forearm wreathed in crackling light. The two bolts collided, exploding in a wave that leveled the ruined ground around them.
Across the Empire, people clutched at walls and rails as the shockwave rolled past.
"Are they trying to destroy the continent?!"
"Those aren't human moves anymore…"
On his throne, the Emperor's knuckles had turned white.
"He's copying the god's techniques," he whispered. "Just like Leon did… but cleaner. Sharper."
"Because he doesn't care if the body breaks," the Empress replied. "He'll burn the vessel if it means wounding a god."
***
The God of Lightning shot into the sky, chains of electricity lashing out in a net.
"Storm‑Binding Prison!"
The chains descended from all directions, each link humming with power strong enough to pulp mountains.
The Mind Demon laughed and raised his own hands. Lightning erupted from Leon's fingers, weaving a twisted mirror of the same technique—a snarling net of dark‑streaked chains that met the god's prison in mid‑air.
For a moment, heaven and earth were crossed by two overlapping cages of light, smashing and grinding against each other. Sparks rained down like lethal meteors.
Somewhere in the capital, a tower exploded as stray arcs chewed through stone.
"Get back!" soldiers screamed as walls trembled.
"Close the barrier! NOW!" "One of the army's chief cultivators shouted, throwing up defensive formations to keep the city from being wiped out."
In distant nations, rulers stared in horrified fascination.
"If that Mind Demon survives this fight," a king said quietly, "we may need to bow to a *monster* instead of a god."
"Or destroy him before he fully stabilizes," another ruler replied, voice grim.
***
Back on the battlefield, the two prisons finally shattered, fragments of lightning dissolving into the air.
The God of Lightning descended, landing heavily, chest rising and falling.
The Mind Demon landed opposite him, hair wild, lips split in a bloody grin. Leon's body smoked where the borrowed lightning had burned it from within—but the demon acted as if pain was just another flavor of pleasure.
"This is fun," he said, giggling softly. "The brat copied you desperately, but he still respected you. I don't."
He lifted a hand. Lightning coiled around his fingers, forming a spear identical to the one the god had used earlier—only this one pulsed with a heartbeat that wasn't human.
"Let's keep playing, god. I want to see which breaks first—your pride, or this boy's body."
The God of Lightning tightened his grip on his own spear of thunder.
"This is no game," he answered. "you'll devour the world that boy was supposed to climb on top of."
They stepped forward at the same time, spears raised—two storms about to crash again.
And the battle, far from over, only grew more terrifying.
***
**Author's Note:**
Leon's gone for now; the Mind Demon has taken the wheel and is doing what Leon almost did—copying a god's moves, but with zero restraint and zero fear of burning the body out.If you're enjoying **Throne Beyond the Veil** and this "Mind Demon vs God of Lightning" phase, drop "Let the demon cook" in the comments, or tell me which side you're secretly rooting for. Your chaos and theories help decide just how far this possession arc spirals.