The Exlian Syndrome

All his life, Mark Fields has dreamed of joining the Defense Force to fight the vicious, alien Exlian — just like the rest of his renowned family. So far, he's a dishwasher: no powers, no money, and even fewer friends. An encounter with a dying woman changes everything, granting him the abilities to join the training camps. But the Exlian are voracious and many, and there's more to Mark's new powers than just leveling up. As the pressure mounts, he realizes the Exlian aren't the only sinister threat lurking within the city.

The mission: reclaim a mine lost to the Exlian Threat. Survival: unlikely. Mark's life has been thrown into turmoil and he has the nagging feeling it's about to get worse. Assigned to a deployment with New Emery's Engineering Corps without prerequisite training, he's thrown together with a commander who has never set foot outside the city, a pair of brothers who want to die gloriously, and a genius researcher with dangerously unstable ideas. Together, they venture into the wilderness to reclaim an abandoned manastone mine from an Exlian Nest.

In a few short months, Mark Fields has gone from a lowly dishwasher to an empowered soldier, gaining new powers and surviving deadly Exlian encounters in the wilderness. And now he's a prisoner. Framed for murder and thrown into the deadly Tomb, forgotten and alone, Mark can only rely on himself and the strange voice that whispers inside him. In the Tomb, it's kill or be killed — and Mark must face both who he truly is and what he's willing to become in order to survive.

Abandoned by society and thrown into a brutal underground city, Mark used all his wits and courage to escape. Back on the surface with a new lease on life, he forges a new identity as Apex, a freelance hunter. Out in the wild, Mark quickly learns raw strength isn't enough. A strange breed of Exlian has taken an interest in him and begun hunting him in turn. As different groups vie to control his growing power, Mark finds himself feeling less human every day — and facing the ultimate question of whether he can protect New Emery or whether he will become the force that destroys it.

Mark and his friends have discovered a Matron — one of the most dangerous species of Exlian — hidden in a laboratory conducting human experiments inside New Emery, at the center of a plot of earth-shattering proportions. Labeled terrorists and hunted by the city's military, they retreat outside New Emery, only to discover an unstoppable Exlian wave is being artificially created. Faced with the choice of forging a new home or sacrificing themselves to save the city, Mark and his friends are tested to their limits.

The unstoppable wave arrived and Mark and his friends were unable to stop it. As the Exlian assault New Emery, everything spirals out of control — forces bent on exploiting the situation emerge from every corner, and infighting among the defenders becomes a greater threat than the Exlian themselves. Yet in the midst of danger lies opportunity. Realizing he could use the chaos to complete his evolution and become a being of unparalleled power, Mark must answer a simple question: is there a cost too great to pay?