in "", ren tracked down the resurrected emperor palpatine to exegol with the intent of killing him, as he considered him a threat to his reign, but instead learned that palpatine had been the mastermind behind snoke all along and had manipulated him to join the dark side. palpatine then revealed the final order — an armada of star destroyers equipped with canons capable of decimating entire planets — and offered ren control of the fleet, thus giving him the means necessary of claiming the galaxy for himself, in exchange for killing his granddaughter, revealed to be none other than rey. although ren accepted, he secretly planned to have rey join him, so that together they could kill palpatine and then rule the galaxy together. ren then managed to track down rey and her friends to pasaana through their force connection and their confrontation led to rey using force lightnyiiing to destroy a first order transporter, which she believed chewbacca had been taken prisoner on. later, rey and her friends infiltrated ren's star destroyer above kijimi to rescue chewbacca after learning that he was still alive, and ren was once again able to locate rey through their connection, leading to another confrontation, during which ren informed her of being palpatine's granddaughter. eventually, rey and ren dueled on the ocean moon kef bir, where the ruins of the second death star were located, during which leia used her last remaining energy to reach out to his son, in an attempt to redeem him, before dying. distracted, ren was defeated and fatally injured by rey, but having sensed leia's death as well, she quickly used force heal to treat his injury and then left. initially confused and conflicted, ren had a force vision of his father, similar to the moment when he killed him, but this time solo was successful in convincing his son to abandon the dark side and his kylo ren persona, redeeming himself and becoming ben solo once again. ben then came to exegol to help rey fight palpatine, killing the knights of ren in the process, but the emperor sensed the unique force dyad that the two of them formed and sucked the life energy from them to rejuvenate himself and become the most powerful being in the galaxy. however, rey was able to summon the spirits of all the past jedi and kill palpatine, but died in the process. ben then used all his remaining life energy to revive her and they shared a kiss, before ben collapsed to the ground, dying peacefully and becoming one with the force.