The Overlord flung himself into her energy shield. The force swept her off her feet and shoved her down the remaining length of the hall and into the cavernous interior of the harvester's hangar. She struck a pile of empty metal capsules, and when she tried to rise again, she realized how much heavier her body felt.

Defending from his attack had claimed the last of her bracelet's energy. Her ascension released her, and her celestial armor evaporated into the air. It took her longer this time to gather her senses. Her body was less mobile, and her mind began to lose its focus.

She turned her eyes to the sapphire giant who entered the hangar. His right arm had lost its piece of armor, and blood dripped from his fingers. But there was no wound there, nor on his face or his neck.

Maeyune suspected the water's elemental power of healing had solved that problem.

Her chest tightened. Where was Reo? Had he used all his powers?

She stood in a low crouch and was about to run for cover, when her eyes caught something small and black on the floor a few feet away.

Her heart flew to her throat.

It was the detonator.

It must have fallen from Meera's hand and flown into the hangar in the wake of the Overlord's blast.

Every cell of her body froze as her mind became a narrow tunnel.

Destroy the last column.

Water and fire whirred at the Overlord from behind him, and Maeyune took her opportunity to run. She snatched the small handheld from the ground and clasped it inside a tight fist. When she turned—prepared to complete the mission—she saw Meera and Clover standing beside the Overlord, their faces blank.

The sight of her expressionless friends sent a chill down her body. Her thumb hovered over the detonator's button, but that short second of hesitation had been too long.

Her mental walls were gone. There was nothing in her mind to prevent the Overlord from taking control.

Her body ignored every one of her urgent commands. Her arms fell to her side, and she stood straight with her shoulders back—like that of an obedient soldier.

She knew what telepathy could do to someone as vulnerable as she was now. When she'd used her telepathy on others, she'd had two choices: to force them into an unconscious daze and have them wake up with no recollection of the time in between—or force them to watch, wakeful and powerless, as the world moved around them.

For her, the Overlord had chosen the latter. Her friends appeared to have fallen asleep with their eyes open. But she was witness to everything that happened around her.

"How disappointing to see you in such a state," the Overlord said. His voice meshed with the sounds of battle coming from outside the hangar. He walked toward her, casually examining the blood on his forearm. When he stood in front of her, her mind screamed for her body to move. But it refused to obey. Round and round, she ran, searching for a crack in the wall in which the Ranhabeck had confined her mind.

He heard her cries of anguish, and he gave her a disparaging look.

"Don't expect your Sun Guardian to come rescue you anytime soon," the Overlord continued. "He has my entire army to face, after all."

His gaze fell to the detonator in her hand. He held out his palm, and she screamed silently as she watched herself pass it to him like a friend offering a gift. He observed the device, his brow wrinkling in amusement.

She felt a tear slide down her cheek.

"I understand how frustrating it must be," he said. His patronizing remark invoked a ball of anger inside her, and he took notice. "Have you never been subjected to such a state before?"

Her insides shook with rage and humility.

"How incredible it must have been," he continued, "to be the only human on this planet to wield the weapon of silent communication. There is much I can teach you."

She heard the smallest of whines in her throat.

Wait...that had been a voluntary noise.

He hadn't heard it.

Crack.

What was that?

"I will forgive you and your transgressions, Lehrach, but you will of course be restrained until the last of your days."

There, in his mental wall, a minuscule tear...

Crack.

The tear widened, and through it, she could see light.

Be strong.

The Overlord paused to look at her, his eyes narrowing. But it was already too late. His hubris had given her the chance she needed.

In the mere span of a second, her mind left her body. She flew beyond the space of the hangar, beyond the harvester ship, and she rose into the sky to peer at the Wobeck gloom.

Its gray was not as dense as it had been before the battle. And there it was--a light within that gloom that was growing stronger, brighter.

Not Reo, she thought.

Sunlight.

The Overlord's mental wall ruptured, and breaking through it was Shivra's silver head.

Maeyune snapped back into her body, and her hands moved quickly. They latched onto the Overlord's hand, and clinging to her moment of reality, she pressed the detonator's button—and released.

The explosion came instantly.

There was a single blast in the distance, like a thousand mechanical drums colliding into one. She heard metal shattering and felt the floor shake from the force of the blast. Then, there were more explosions, each growing louder as it continued to spread through the ship.

The hangar shook again, and the floor began to tilt. Sections tore from the ceiling and began to collapse.

She and the Overlord stumbled apart.

"You fool!" he shouted. "You have destroyed your planet!"

She didn't know why his words gave her a moment's hesitation. There had been a real threat in his voice.

Water and fire spouted across the hangar and pinned him against the side of a crate. Maeyune's eyes widened as a conscious Meera and Clover stomped forward.

"Mae is the only one who can do that to us!" the water celestial screamed. "And we don't even allow her to!"

The Overlord recovered immediately. Both celestials stopped mid-stride as they became mindless puppets once more.

By the time the alien turned to see Maeyune's whereabouts, she'd catapulted off a crate and into the air, a long piece of metal debris held firmly in her hand. She caught the brief surprise in his eyes, and she drove the metal upward into his head.

Her grip on the metal sliced into her skin, but she ignored the pain. She ignored everything that happened around her. She'd lost track of time as she and the Overlord both fell to the floor, her knee on his chest.

His limbs grew lax, and his chest heaved into a slow, shuddering rhythm. All she could see were his eyes as they dilated, as their focus shifted and faded. All she knew was this one moment when she saw and witnessed the life leave his body.

In what felt like a lifetime, she watched as the Overlord died.

And she felt nothing.

Her mind had forced her emotions into emptiness. Her body remained on edge as if at any moment, he would rise again.

But there was no movement, only the blank, empty stare of his face.

A shaky breath left her lungs.

Survive.

Her injured hand moved on its own. She pressed into earpiece, her voice surprisingly steady.

"The Overlord is dead," she said, rising to stand. "I repeat. The Overlord is d--"

Her head grew faint, and her knees buckled underneath her. She collapsed onto the ground again.

"Mae!" Meera shouted.

Both celestials rushed toward her, but large slabs of metal plunged into the ground between them. They diverted as much of the debris as they could, shouting Maeyune's name at the top of their lungs.

Get up. Now, she told herself.

It wasn't from the loss of blood. She only had a cut in her hand, nothing more. Maeyune pressed her hands into the ground, struggling to rise from the cracking floor.

No, not now. It can't be now...

"Good work, Sierra Team. We've got a plane coming to your location."

She could hardly hear General Sora's reply, or even the faint cheers in the background as more people congratulated her.

An abrupt voice interrupted the joy on the comms. "Maeyune, where are you?"

The voice sounded tired.

"Reo, something's wrong with Mae!" Meera cried.

When Reo spoke again, his words were urgent. Maeyune could hear his fear. "I'm coming to get you."

Then, the tone changed in the voices in her earpiece. Celebrations turned to concern. Concern turned to terror.

She heard General Soras command, "Pull your teams back. Now!"

The next words were inaudible as her mind flew in and out of focus. She heard "black" and "smoke," and she saw Trix and Benny's faces drifting in her mind's eye.

The smoke that had claimed them... The Overlord had called it Death's Embrace.

You have destroyed your planet.

The Overlord's words resonated in her mind.

Desperate, she ignored the calls of her friends and staggered her way to the opening of the collapsing hangar. There, spreading across the desert floor was a familiar sight: thick, black smoke that seemed to move on its own. It burst out from within giant capsules in the sand. The Wobeck motherships in the sky continued to drop those capsules, releasing the poison that now sought out all forms of life.

Maeyune struggled to breathe.

Had the Overlord won the battle, Vaius would have been his and the human race forced under the reign of some ancient empire. But he was dead, and now the results of his defeat had begun to unveil itself. His army was carrying out their last command.

This was what he had meant. If he couldn't have Vaius, then he would destroy it entirely.

The floor tilted again, and this time, Maeyune could not keep her balance. Meera and Clover's panicked shouts were muffled beneath the clamor of explosions. She slid along the length of the hangar's opening, and when the floor convulsed again, she was sent over the edge.

By some miracle, her good hand grasped onto a metal rod that protruded from the torn floor. She hung there, her legs hanging over the edge, her eyes capturing the world outside while her vision continued to blur in and out.

She watched the sky above her.

Sunlight pierced through the gloom and struck the planet in golden spears. It had no effect on the black smoke, which now spread its hungry hands across the desert. It claimed life after life as it moved, swallowing those who could not flee in time. Unchallenged, it would destroy millions of lives before its thirst was quenched.

She saw another golden light in the sky—a star on a mission. It streaked past allied and enemy aircrafts, its path set in stone. Nothing would stand in its way as it flew toward the harvester ship, toward her.

Reo.

Above that flying star, a hole split open inside the gloom. A patch of sunlight broke through, and when Reo passed through it, his shining, golden armor vanished.

His ascension released him.

Thrust back into human form, his powers left him in midair, and he became a dark speck in the sky plummeting to the ground.

Maeyune's heart gave a start. She tried to call his name, but she'd lost the ability to speak.

With wide eyes, she watched helplessly as he crashed into the desert. But a brief flash of gold told her he'd had enough energy left to ease his landing. He managed to come to a stop, his tiny figure hunched over as if to recover his senses. Then, he was up on his feet, leaping into the air to fly toward her again with whatever power remained. His sun ring--that was all he had left.

The moment he set foot on the ship, the clouds dispersed, and sunlight poured into the desert. Reo sprinted past falling ship debris and swerved aside to avoid the light, if only to buy himself more time to reach Maeyune.

But sunrays found him.

A golden beam captured him in stride. He fell to his knees twenty feet from Maeyune.

And all she could do was stare, her heart thudding rapidly against her ribs as their eyes connected.

It was too late.

Silver speckles leaked from her skin. The gold was leaving Reo like dust carried off by a gentle wind. The air around him shimmered with it, and Maeyune's chest clenched at how beautiful—and devastating—it was.

Reo struggled to move, to crawl toward her, but it was all the strength he had left to stay conscious. He didn't speak her name, only gazed back at her, his life force sprinkling the air.

And she imagined in that brief moment, through that short distance between them, she could feel his arms around her again, his fingers brushing away her tears, and his lips on hers—one last time.

Visions flashed before her eyes.

She saw all that had happened between her and Reo, from their first meeting to the last moment he'd held her. Everything they had been and everything they had grown to be would be lost forever. His soul would return to the Sun Goddess, and Reo Castell would cease to exist.

Maeyune Ereni would cease to exist.

She thought of Aer, Trix and Benny, and all those people who had died fighting to survive. She thought of Clover, Meera, her beloved Aunt Lyn, and all those who would live to see another sunrise.

They would live. Yes, they would live.

This was for them.

The floor finally gave way.

She and Reo dove miles headfirst toward the desert floor. She closed her eyes, turned her face to the sun and welcomed its warmth.

In the air, she felt her pulse end. In the distance, she heard a dragon's roar begin.

Then, there was nothing.