The Covenant of Pain

Leon's breath crystallized on his visor, the sound of shattered crystal skeletons under his boots echoing like the cry of a newborn. The surface of this planet, designated X-7, was covered in vast, glassed-over forests. Each "tree" was a grotesque hybrid sculpture of human and machine—mothers forever frozen in terror, cradling crystal infants, warriors plunging photon swords into their own hearts, and even two bodies kissing as they were simultaneously crystallized, their tongues still connected by an energy arc.

"Radiation levels are abnormal," Alicia wiped the scanner clean, strange nebula-like patterns appearing on her abdomen. "This wasn't naturally formed... it's like some kind of penance ritual."

They found a log chip in the wreckage of a crashed ship. When played, a hologram appeared, showing Corwin standing alongside Leon's father, with the glass forest as their backdrop. "The 719th seeding experiment has succeeded. The test civilization chose to undergo collective glassification after learning of the Phoenix Plan—proving that emotions are an obstacle to ascension to godhood."

Suddenly, Leon's father's voice cut in: "But that child proved that love can distort the protocol..." The image was violently cut off, leaving only twenty seconds of chaotic electromagnetic noise.

"Look at this," Alicia pried open the cockpit floor to reveal a prism pendant hidden below. When Leon touched it, the pendant projected a star chart—directly pointing to the planet's core.

Their journey through the forest felt like a nightmare. The crystallized humans weren't dead—they were still alive, their eyes tracking visitors, their frozen vocal cords continuing to scream in quantum frequency. Leon's Phoenix Emblem grew unbearably hot, and certain painful memories began to invade his dreams: his father, kneeling in the laboratory, confessing as he implanted a glowing embryo into Corwin's neck.

The entrance to the planet's core was a cathedral, turned upside down. Stained glass depicted Corwin's path to godhood: holding a photon spear to pierce the First Commander, standing on the corpse of Leon's father. When Alicia touched the mural, the glass suddenly liquefied, pulling her into the wall.

"Alicia!" Leon's pulse gun burned scorch marks on the wall. The response came in the form of a mechanical choir—hundreds of crystal nuns rising from their prayer chairs, their metal-reinforced vocal cords singing:

"Flesh is weak, glass is eternal,

The Quantum Blood of the Holy Father Corwin

Will be reborn in the Conduit's womb."

The floor of the cathedral cracked open. Leon fell into a boiling photon furnace, finding Alicia floating at its core. Her abdomen had become transparent, revealing a coiled Phoenix embryo. Even more horrifying, the walls of the furnace were embedded with mechanical hearts, each one pulsing in sync with the embryo's heartbeat.

"Welcome home, brother."

The voice of a young girl struck Leon like a lightning bolt. A woman, identical to Alicia but covered in circuit tattoos, descended the crystal steps, a prism emblem embedded in her forehead. "I am Eva Witt, the Seventh Saintess of the Crystal Cult."

A holographic projection unfolded in the furnace. Leon witnessed his father and Corwin collaborating in their youth aboard the star ark, until they discovered the truth of the Phoenix Plan. A key frame showed his father implanting a glowing embryo into Corwin's spinal cord—the gene sequence of that embryo was identical to Leon's.

"You are the perfect vessel Corwin prepared for himself," Eva's finger traced across Alicia's transparent abdomen. "And she was made to be your incubator..."

Alicia suddenly opened her eyes, her pupils splitting into kaleidoscopic patterns. "Wrong. I am the Protocol Correction Program E-739." Her mechanical left arm elongated, plunging into Eva's chest. "Initiating purification."

The crystal nuns exploded in unison. Leon, caught in the energy storm, held onto Alicia, noticing her womb now bore his father's handwritten journal: "When the Phoenix embryo matures, kill the host."

A deafening sound of gears grinding echoed from the planet's core. The entire planet began to collapse into glass, and at the bottom of the furnace, a black obelisk, inscribed with the dual signatures of his father and Corwin, rose—marked with a date three years before Leon's birth.

Eva's lifeless body convulsed in manic laughter. "Listen..."

In the roar of the planet's disintegration, Leon distinctly heard Corwin's voice emanating from the obelisk: "My dear child, do you think you can escape the holy cycle?"

Alicia's abdomen suddenly erupted in a gravitational vortex. When Leon's Phoenix Emblem resonated with it, he saw the most desperate truth—the embryo within was not just any seed, but the core consciousness of Corwin himself.