The psychic scream cut off as suddenly as it had begun.
The world rushed back in, a cacophony of sound and color and pain.
Michael was on his knees, his head bowed, his body trembling uncontrollably.
He felt like a live wire, humming with a power so vast, so ancient, so utterly alien that his own human form felt like a cage that was about to burst.
The Umbraxis roared, a sound of pure, undiluted, and deeply personal outrage.
It had been violated.
A tiny, insignificant insect had reached into its very soul and stolen a piece of it.
It was no longer just fighting an invasion.
It was settling a grudge.
It turned its full, undivided, and apocalyptic attention on the small, kneeling figure in the center of the field.
It was going to wipe him from existence.
"He's… he's still alive," Jinx breathed into the comms, her voice a mixture of sheer, unadulterated terror and a new, profound, and deeply unsettling awe.
"What in the hell did he just do?"
