Chapter 304: The Truth About The Progenitors

White. Endless white.

Lucifer stood in a space that had no floor, no ceiling, no walls. Just light—soft, ambient, everywhere and nowhere at once. He looked down at his hands. They were solid. Real. But the space around him wasn’t.

A dream.

He was dreaming.

"You’re more perceptive than most."

The voice came from everywhere. Not loud. Not soft. Just present. Like it had always been there, waiting for him to notice.

Lucifer turned.

She stood a few feet away, her appearance shifting between forms. One moment tall and pale, her hair dark waves streaked with silver. The next smaller, sharper, her eyes the color of old blood. Then something else—something older—that his mind couldn’t quite hold.

The Collector.

Or what the Collector had been.

"I know you," Lucifer said.

She tilted her head.

"Do you?"

"Not fully. But I know you’re not just a Collector. You’re something else."

Her lips curved. It wasn’t a smile—more an acknowledgment.

"I am. And I’m not."

She stepped closer. Her form settled into the woman from the ruins—tall, pale, hair dark and silver-streaked, eyes like old blood.

"I am a goddess."

Lucifer’s shadows stirred—in the dream, in the real world, everywhere at once.

"Liar."

"Truth." She raised a hand. The white around them flickered, showing glimpses of something else—stars, galaxies, the edges of creation. "A fallen one. Hunted for millennia. I hid this part of the universe from my pantheon’s prying eyes. I hid myself."

Lucifer’s jaw tightened.

"The Collectors. You were the one."

She nodded.

"I went by many names. The Progenitors called me the Collector. Others called me the Seeder. I took the raw potential of existence and planted it where I saw fit."

She paused.

"The Progenitors are my seeds."

Lucifer went still.

"Excuse me?"

"The Seven. The First Ones. Every Progenitor that followed. I planted them here, in this universe, to grow into something greater."

Her eyes met his.

"You are the first one to show fruit."

Lucifer’s shadows coiled around him.

"I’m not a seed."

She laughed—a soft, almost gentle sound.

"No. You’re something else entirely. A hybrid. A mutation. A flaw in the design that became its own design." She studied him with those old-blood eyes. "I don’t know how you broke the racial limits of your kind. You’re not the first hybrid. But you are the first Progenitor hybrid. Perhaps that’s the difference."

Lucifer held her gaze.

"What do you want?"

She stepped closer.

"I want to help you."

"Why?"

"Because you are the perfect candidate." Her voice dropped. "To become a god."

The words hung in the white space.

Lucifer stared at her.

"I’m not interested."

She raised an eyebrow.

"No?"

"I’ve spent a century fighting gods. I don’t want to become one."

"Yet you already walk the path." She gestured at him. "You have the Human Authority in your core. Demon blood in your veins. Vampire Progenitor authority woven into your soul. You are pseudo-divine. A hair’s breadth from godhood."

Lucifer’s shadows pulsed.

"Then why do you care?"

"I am the one who planted the seeds. The Progenitors were my greatest hope. My greatest failure." Her voice hardened. "They stagnated. They settled. They ruled their little realms and called it enough."

She looked at him.

"Until you."

Lucifer was quiet.

"I can push you faster," she continued. "I can show you paths that the Progenitors never found. I can help you become what they should have been."

Lucifer’s eyes narrowed.

"And what do you get out of it?"

She smiled—colder now, more distant.

"Vengeance. The pantheon that cast me out. I want to watch them burn. And you—you could be the flame."

Lucifer took a step back.

"You’re using me."

"I’m offering you a choice." Her form flickered—for a moment, she was something vast, something terrible, something that had lived before the stars were born. Then she was just a woman again. "But you don’t remember me, do you? The resurrection cost you more than you know."

Lucifer’s chest tightened.

"What do you mean?"

She sighed.

"You really did resurrect that fox girl. That’s going to bite you one day. You gave up all the memories of her—every moment, every laugh, every fight. You have to start all over with her."

She paused.

"But I can give you one memory back. One moment. The moment you defied me for her."

Lucifer stared at her.

"Defied you?"

"In the Collector’s lair. When you shattered my orb. When you chose her over power." Her form flickered. "You earned my respect that day. And my attention."

She reached out.

"Would you like to remember?"

Lucifer hesitated.

Then he nodded.

Her fingers touched his forehead.

The white space exploded into color.

---

He was back in the Collector’s lair.

The orb was shattering. Souls were pouring out like light through a broken dam. The Collector—this woman, the goddess—was screaming.

And Lucifer was holding Francisca’s body.

"You could have it all," the Collector hissed. "Power. Dominion. Godhood. Leave her, and I will give you everything."

Lucifer looked at her—at the faceless, too-long thing she’d been.

"No."

She recoiled.

"No? You would throw away infinite potential for one mortal soul?"

He held Francisca tighter.

"She’s not just a mortal soul. She’s my sister."

The Collector’s form flickered—rage, confusion, something like wonder.

"You would defy me?"

Lucifer met the void where her eyes should have been.

"I would defy anyone. For her."

The memory shattered.

---

Lucifer was back in the white space.

His breath was ragged. His hands were shaking.

The Collector—the goddess—watched him with something almost like warmth.

"Now you remember."

Lucifer looked at his hands.

"I defied you."

"Yes."

"For her."

"Yes."

He looked up.

"You called me a seed."

"I did."

"Plant me."

She raised an eyebrow.

"Excuse me?"

Lucifer’s crimson eyes blazed.

"Help me become what I need to be. But on my terms."

The Collector’s smile was slow. Cold. Satisfied.

"Then it’s a deal."

The white space faded.

Lucifer woke in his bed, gasping.

"I have to get stronger."