*Content Warning: This chapter contains mature themes, violence, blood, and morally dark actions. Reader discretion advised.*
The Mind Demon threw his head back and laughed. "Kahahahaha… you must be insane. Did you really say that brat was supposed to climb to the top of this world? Don't be ridiculous. He was already there. If he'd wanted to, he could've crushed this little world in his palm at any time."
He leaned forward, red eyes gleaming. "And weren't you the one who killed him in the first place? Don't tell me a great god is pitying that boy now. Kekekekeke…"
"Shut up!" the God of Lightning roared, fury crackling through his voice.
Lightning spears clashed mid‑air, god and demon hurling storms at each other using the same techniques twisted in different ways. Each collision shattered the air, carving fresh scars into the ruined battlefield.
The Mind Demon laughed through the smoke, hair wild, red eyes glowing.
"Faster, god," he taunted. "If you don't hurry, this body will break before you do."
The God of Lightning's face was grim. His lightning was pure, controlled; the demon's version was savage, chaotic, but terrifyingly close to his own. Every exchange deepened the dread lurking in the god's chest.
They moved again.
The god raised his hand, gathering power into a single, blinding edge.
"Divine Severance."
A blade of condensed lightning tore through the sky toward the Mind Demon, dense enough to erase anything it touched.
The demon smiled—and copied him. Lightning curved around Leon's arm, forming a blade with the same shape, the same trajectory, but wrapped in devouring darkness.
The two slashes crossed.
The impact turned the world white.
When vision returned, a line had been carved across the land itself—stone melted into a glowing trench, clouds sliced apart. The Mind Demon skidded back, arm shaking, blood flowing from his shoulder. Leon's flesh smoked where the power had been forced through it.
He only laughed harder.
"Beautiful," he said. "Your moves fit this body so well it hurts."
The God of Lightning did not answer. His gaze had dropped to his own arm.
From the shoulder down, everything was gone.
The lightning blade had cut him as well. His right arm ended in a ragged stump, sparks leaking from the wound like blood.
Across the Empire, the world fell silent.
"A… god's arm…"
"It's missing."
"He was injured. That thing actually *injured* a god."
In the imperial palace, the Emperor's breath hitched.
"He cut off the god's arm," he whispered. "A Mind Demon… wounded a god."
The Empress's fingers trembled where no one could see.
"Then this battle," she murmured, "really is beyond us."
***
For a moment, even the God of Lightning looked stunned. It had been ages since anything drew real blood from him.
Then his expression cooled.
"So that's your limit," he said quietly, looking at the shattered stump. "You can imitate my techniques… but you can't fully control them. Even when you hurt me, you hurt yourself more."
The Mind Demon's grin twitched.
"Heh… you say that as if I care about the damage," he replied. "This body is a tool. If breaking it lets me taste a god's blood, I'd rip it apart a hundred times."
Before he could launch forward again, something inside the shared body lurched.
The red in his eyes flickered.
"Tch."
Deep in that same body, in a place that wasn't exactly mind or flesh, a different consciousness clawed upward.
Leon.
He had been drowned in darkness, thrown aside when the demon seized control, but the shock of the last exchange—pain, power, the taste of death again—gave him something to grab onto.
Like a man climbing a cliff with bleeding fingers, he dragged himself up.
For a heartbeat, the Mind Demon's movements stalled.
"…You again?" the demon hissed internally, annoyance spiking.
The god narrowed his eyes. He saw the slight change—the way the smile loosened, the way the shoulders stiffened.
"Brat," the demon growled inside the shared space, "stay down."
But Leon refused.
A surge of will slammed against the demon's grip.
On the outside, the red in Leon's eyes dimmed, gold streaks forcing their way back in. His posture shifted—less languid madness, more raw exhaustion and stubbornness.
The Mind Demon clicked his tongue, visibly irritated.
"Annoying," he spat. "You just don't know when to die."
***
Leon's awareness snapped fully back into his body.
Pain greeted him first—a body half‑cooked by lightning, muscles torn, bones cracked, qi running wild. He tasted blood on his tongue, felt it drip from the corner of his lips. His chest burned with every breath.
Still, he stood.
The God of Lightning stared at him, stump still crackling.
"So you've pushed the demon back… for now," the god said. "You're persistent, boy."
Leon didn't answer immediately. His vision swayed. The Mind Demon seethed at the edge of his consciousness, chained but still very much present. The body they both fought over could barely stand.
*I can't win like this,* Leon realized.
He let out a rough, humorless laugh.
"I have no choice," he muttered, blood dripping down his chin. "I hate to admit it… but I'm too damn weak. I can't defeat you. Not yet."
He looked at his trembling hands, then clenched one into a fist.
"So for this last move," he whispered, "I'll pour everything I have into one arm… and do something crazy."
Qi, lightning, and every last scrap of energy in his battered body surged toward his right arm. Veins bulged; skin cracked, leaking thin lines of blood and light.
The God of Lightning's eyes widened.
"What are you doing?"
***
In the capital, the scrying image shook as Leon's aura changed.
"What… is that pressure?" a court elder gasped. "He was at death's door a moment ago."
"It's unstable," the Empress said, pupils shrinking. "He's burning his life."
The Emperor rose from his throne without realizing it, staring at the image.
"If he explodes, will even the god survive that?" he muttered.
Common cultivators throughout the Empire felt it too—a distortion in the air, as if the world itself was being grabbed and twisted.
***
Leon smiled faintly, the expression half‑mad, half‑determined.
"I don't know if I can do it," he said, more to himself than anyone else. "But this time… I'll try to tear open space itself."
A memory rose up: his Master casually slicing the air, stepping through a wound in reality as if it were a door.
"I need to escape," Leon whispered. "I have to make a portal like Master did."
Cracks of light formed around his arm as the energy condensed further, condensing to the point the air screamed.
"With everything I have left, I'll rip space open… and walk through."
Inside his mind, the Mind Demon roared with laughter.
"Kahahahahaha! Brat, you really have gone insane," the demon shouted. "Tearing into that place in your condition? You won't survive. You'll get lost forever between worlds and never crawl back out."[4]
Leon's answer was simple.
"So what?" he said, smiling through the blood. "Staying here is guaranteed death. That place is at least a gamble."
The God of Lightning felt the distortion sharpen, like a blade pressing against the fabric of reality itself. For the first time in a very long while, genuine alarm flashed across his face.
"Stop," he commanded. "You don't know what you're tampering with."
Leon ignored him.
The pressure climbed higher. The world groaned.
Every emperor, every empress, every ruler watching felt their hearts clench as an unfamiliar energy pulsed across the land—beyond lightning, beyond ordinary qi.
"What is he touching…?" someone whispered.
"That's not a normal spatial technique," another said. "He's forcing the world to open."
***
With a final, ragged shout, Leon swung his overcharged arm down.
Reality split.
A black wound opened in the air in front of him, edges lined with twisting light that seemed to devour sound and color. It wasn't a clean doorway like his Master's—more like someone had taken the concept of "space" and torn it with bare hands.
The God of Lightning's expression turned murderous.
"Do you think I'll let you escape?!" he roared, lightning surging as he lashed out.
Leon stepped toward the crack, body barely holding together. Just before he crossed the threshold, he glanced back over his shoulder.
Despite the blood, despite the exhaustion, a mocking grin tugged at his lips.
"Hey, you damn god," he called out hoarsely. "You lost an arm just trying to kill me when I was half‑dead. Imagine what happens when we meet again after I learn how to use this properly."
He lifted his ruined hand in a half‑salute.
"Try not to die of fear before then."
The God of Lightning's attack crashed down—an ocean of lightning—just as Leon stepped into the wound in space. The crack swallowed him, then slammed shut with a sound like the world gasping.
The lightning hit empty ground.
Leon was gone.
***
**Author's Note:**
Leon just used his last strength not to win, but to run—ripping open space itself with a half‑broken body while a god and a Mind Demon screamed in his ears. If you're enjoying **Throne Beyond the Veil** and this "gamble everything on a portal you don't understand" move, drop "Escape is also a victory"in the comments, or share where you think Leon landed after stepping into that crack in reality.