"Last Gleaming" is the eighth and final storyarc in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight comic book series, which is based on the television show.

He explains to her that the Twilight realm, created from Buffy and Angel's lovemaking, demands the Seed, the source of all magic found deep in the Hellmouth below the fallen Sunnydale.

As Slayers engage in a mass battle, Buffy and a select few descend into the Hellmouth, where they find the Master guarding the Seed, a red, egg-shaped ball of energy.

Willow confiscates the Seed from the Master and feels more powerful and more connected to the universe than ever; now able to destroy hordes of extra-dimensional demons above ground with ease.

Horrified by the death of her mentor, Buffy grabs the Scythe and uses it to smash the Seed before collapsing to the ground in tears beside Giles, causing all magic on Earth to vanish.

Four months after the battle, Buffy is living a quiet and modest lifestyle in San Francisco and is staying at Dawn and Xander's apartment while waitressing by day and vampire slaying by night.

[1] In a 2011 interview, Whedon stated that his decision to kill off Giles could not be discussed in detail "because ripples from that event" would also be a large part of both Season Nine and Angel and Faith.

However, he was able to explain other motivations; he felt that from a writing perspective, Giles' did not work in the comic book medium where he had flourished on the television show.

[1] On the penultimate page of issue forty, a panel shows the face of "a guy in John Lennon glasses who looks fairy evil".