Criminal. Scoundrel. Gangster. Outcast. By the time the Corruptor’s hordes conquered Cryos, the jailers of prisoner Zrin were either corpses or mutated creatures who’d left their prisoners to die in their cages.

While he lay dying in his cell from silicon poisoning, Zrin received a visitation he did not understand and never would. A towering creature unlike any he’d ever seen appeared inside his cell and touched his head. Zrin writhed in agony, feeling his body surge with unbearable heat, as if from the skin of a star. And then the super-being--Crogenitor Ptyron--vanished as if he’d never appeared.

But when Zrin awoke, he stood, energized. And as if by instinct, he released plasma from one fist and lightning from the other to blast apart his jail cell.

Slaughtering a raging mass of Darkspore, Zrin escaped his gulag and ran for the nearest city he could find. Zrin’s aims were simple: pure survival. Had the Corruptor’s forces offered those to him without stealing his mind, he would have joined them in a heart-beat.