Trapped in the squalor of the Lower City, Evan Cole clutches the mysterious beast egg left by his late mother as he steps into the Awakening chamber. Elite examiners dismiss his companion as a pathetic insect, stamping him with the lowest combat tier in academy history. What the sneering aristocrats fail to recognize is the ancient horror resting in his palm.
Bonded by blood to Alia, an evolutionary hive queen capable of absorbing fallen monsters to multiply her horde, Evan ventures into lethal subterranean dungeons. As corrupt noble houses conspire with abyssal lords to sacrifice commoners, Evan commands his unstoppable swarm from the shadows, prepared to devour the highborn masters who wrote him off as worthless.
