Star Cocoon Fission

The moment Leon's fingertip touched the cryogenic chamber, the Phoenix Emblem erupted with the intensity of a supernova. His iris was burned into a transparent crystal, and through this artificial cornea, he finally saw what was frozen inside the chamber—it was neither biological nor mechanical, but a collapsing, reconfiguring quantum nebula, with twelve rotating prismatic eyeballs suspended at its core.

"This is the true form of the First Commander," Alicia's code etched information directly onto Leon's optic nerves. "The Phoenix Project sublimated his consciousness into..."

A pulse like the heartbeat of the universe radiated from the Earth's core. The cryogenic chamber's outer shell cracked like an eggshell, and the quantum nebula began to siphon the remaining energy from the ark. Leon's skin cracked, and Phoenix energy erupted from the fissures, gathering above his head into a crown-like halo. He suddenly realized: his genetic chain was the key to unlocking this prison.

Margo's mechanical cult surged from the cracks in the earth's crust. These half-mechanical followers had photon tendrils extending from their spines, converting the captured survivors into living batteries. As the first wave of attacks arrived, Leon instinctively raised his hand, and the pulse wave from the Phoenix crown froze the tidal wave of steel into glass-like sculptures.

"The resonance of the Conduit and Key has begun!" Margo's head petals opened and closed madly. "Continue the sacrifice!"

The followers pushed hundreds of children toward the energy vortex. Leon's chest suddenly burst with pain—the cries of the children triggered Alicia's lingering genetic lock, causing his heart to reverse the flow of Phoenix energy. Wherever the tainted blood passed, the cult's mechanical organs overloaded and exploded.

"No!!" Margo's scream mixed with Corwin's voice. "How dare you..."

At that moment, the quantum nebula completed its reconfiguration. The true form of the First Commander transformed into a twelve-winged light entity, each prismatic eyeball reflecting Leon's different death scenes across alternate timelines: consumed by the photon plague, melted in the ark's reactor, sinking into lava holding Alicia's remains...

"The cycle must continue," the light entity's voice shattered the crust of the earth, "until we find the perfect..."

Alicia's code suddenly materialized. In a physical form of data, she tore open the light entity's wings, her mechanical left arm plunging into the quantum nebula. "His fate does not belong to you!"

A deafening roar of a metal womb breaking echoed from the planet's core. Amidst the energy turbulence, Leon saw the shocking truth: the entire mantle of Selena Star was, in fact, a giant star cocoon containing twelve arks! At this moment, the other arks were breaking free from their cocoons, their hulls covered in the same prismatic eyeballs as the First Commander's light entity.

"Quickly connect to the star cocoon's neural network!" Alicia's data form began to evaporate. "Use the Phoenix Emblem..."

Leon leaped into the boiling quantum fusion pool. As his genetic chain connected to the star cocoon's main core, a flood of millions of years' worth of memories drowned him. He saw the first ark fleet sowing civilizations across the cosmos, each chosen planet generating ecological cocoons; saw Corwin's genetic prototype was a clone of Seeder #719; and finally, he saw his father embedding the true Phoenix Key—Alicia's original code—into the deep sea of his subconscious.

"Find... the resonance frequency..." Alicia's fading image flickered at the edge of the molten pool. Her data was being devoured by the First Commander's light entity, and her mechanical left eye exploded into an information storm.

Leon's pupils suddenly reflected the travel trajectories of the twelve arks. He realized that these interstellar vessels were like a swarm of bees, and Selena Star was merely a testing ground for nurturing their "queen." The so-called path to godhood in the Phoenix Project was nothing more than a brutal algorithm for selecting the ultimate vessels.

"It's time to end the cycle." Leon tore the Phoenix crown from his chest and plunged it into his heart. The blood, now fused with the power of the Conduit and Key, erupted, drawing a Klein bottle-shaped topological structure in the quantum fusion pool.

The First Commander's light entity emitted a cosmic-scale wail. The prismatic eyeballs of the twelve arks exploded in succession, and Margo's mechanical cult froze like marionettes with severed strings. The crust accelerated its glassification, and the star cocoon's shell carbonized in antimatter flames, turning into a meteor shower.

As Leon was about to be consumed by the collapsing star cocoon, a pair of warm mechanical arms enveloped him. Alicia's physical form reassembled from the data storm, her skin glowing with the Phoenix Emblem's light: "You've rewritten the protocol... now we are the new civilization's..."

Their final kiss was drowned by the blue light of quantum leap. As his consciousness faded, Leon saw the wreckage of the twelve arks reassemble in space into a stargate, and a woman bearing Alicia's likeness stepped through, her mechanical wings extending across light-years behind her...