Vampire Progenitor System-Chapter 158: Damaris

"Where is he going?"

Lucifer’s voice was low as he stepped out from the ruins of the shattered base. Smoke curled around his boots, his wings folding against his back. The cold dawn wind brushed his white hair, carrying the scent of blood and fire across the silent city.

Then—

[Whatever it is he’s planning, I advise you not to pursue. Gather your people. Leave this world.]

The voice slid into his mind like a whisper down his spine. Calm. Deep. Familiar.

Lucifer frowned, eyes narrowing. "What... was that just now?" he muttered, scanning the empty street around him. The voice felt like it came from everywhere and nowhere. But he recognised it. The timbre. The tone. It was the same voice that guided him moments ago through his awakening.

His father’s voice.

"How is that... possible?" he whispered, his fingers flexing slightly, claws retracting and extending with quiet clicks.

[Ah... about hearing my voice in your head,] the voice replied, warm with quiet laughter. [I believe... since I put my soul into the creation of the system, I am what you would call its AI now.]

A soft chuckle rippled through Lucifer’s skull.

[Incredible, isn’t it? I can see the world again... through your eyes.]

Lucifer’s jaw tightened, his red-gold eyes flickering with faint irritation.

"Damaris," he said softly.

[Oh? You know my true name.] There was genuine amusement in his father’s voice. [I’m touched.]

Lucifer exhaled slowly, his wings rustling behind him. "Why now?" he asked quietly, his voice vibrating with cold frustration. "Why... only now? Why didn’t you speak to me from the moment I acquired this system?"

For a moment, there was only silence in his head. Then a sigh, deep and tired, rolled through his mind.

[Certain conditions needed to be met, my son,] Damaris said, his tone now carrying a weary softness. [The system wasn’t designed to house my awareness fully. Only fragments. But with your awakening... with the merging of your bloodlines and the unlocking of the Omniclass Core...]

Lucifer clenched his fists. "So I had to become this... before you could speak to me."

[Yes,] Damaris said quietly. [And I am sorry. I would have guided you sooner if it were possible.]

Lucifer’s eyes flickered across the burning skyline, his chest tightening with a feeling he didn’t want to name. He shook his head slightly, his horns glowing faintly in the rising dawn light.

"This is... annoying," he muttered.

Damaris laughed softly in his mind. [You’ve always hated help, even as a child.]

Lucifer ignored that, his eyes narrowing as he watched the crimson-stained clouds drifting across the wounded sky.

"Then tell me, father," he said, his voice turning cold again. "If you can see what I see... where is Adam going?"

There was silence in his head for a moment. Then Damaris’s voice came, deeper this time, laced with an ancient edge that felt like a blade drawn across eternity.

[He is going... to the Core of this world. The Source Vein. The heart of all creation here.]

Lucifer’s grip tightened around the air itself, blood aura flickering along his knuckles.

"And what will he do there?"

Damaris sighed softly, grief buried deep in his words.

[He will take it. Harvest this world. Kill it. And from its corpse... create another.]

Lucifer’s wings flared open behind him, shadow and bloodlight streaming across the cracked streets.

"...Not while I still draw breath," he whispered.

In his mind, Damaris chuckled again—warm, proud, and unbearably sad.

[As much as I would like to see that, you are not strong enough for a full-blown confrontation with Adam.]

Damaris’s voice was quiet in Lucifer’s mind, tinged with that same ancient sadness. [He is leagues above you in terms of being a progenitor. So listen carefully, my son. Take your clan... anyone you care for here... and go to the Vampire Realm. Amass your power. Because what Adam is about to do will change the balance of the universe itself. Those old foggies will wake up. Another war will begin. And you... you don’t want to be caught unprepared.]

Lucifer stood silent in the burning street, his claws twitching slightly at his sides. Smoke drifted around him, coiling around his horns like silent shadows. His crimson-gold eyes flickered faintly as he stared at the cracked ground, feeling the tremor of Adam’s fading aura somewhere far above the sky.

Another war.

Another end.

He clenched his teeth. Quiet anger burned in his chest, tempered by something deeper—acceptance.

"Vampire Realm..." he muttered under his breath. "Tch."

Footsteps crunched across broken glass behind him. He didn’t turn. He felt her approach before she was visible.

"Lucifer...?"

Anita’s voice was strained. Bruised. Raw. She limped forward from between two crumbling walls, her crimson coat shredded at the edges. Blood matted her short black hair against her forehead, trickling past her sharp eyes. She stopped a few paces behind him, chest heaving.

She took him in.

His horns, curling back from his temples.

His wings, massive and black-feathered, lined in blood-red glow.

His eyes, flickering with something neither human nor vampire nor demon—but all of them at once.

For a second, her breath caught in her throat.

"...what... happened to you?" she whispered, voice hoarse.

Lucifer didn’t answer right away. He just watched the blood drifting down from a cracked traffic light overhead, each drop catching the dawn light like dying rubies. The city stank of smoke and burned metal. It smelled like failure.

Finally, he turned to her, wings rustling as they folded closer to his back.

"Anita," he said quietly, his voice steady despite the exhaustion weighing on his chest.

She snapped back to attention despite the pain in her side and said jokingly. "Yes... my king."

He studied her for a moment, crimson irises narrowing faintly. "Return to Origin HQ in New York," he said. "Gather everyone—every clan member still breathing. Lock down the compound."

She frowned. "What about you?"

Lucifer turned away again, his eyes distant as Adam’s fading aura flickered at the edge of his senses. He flexed his claws, feeling the blood aura ripple from his fingertips across the ash-stained ground.

"I’ll find the rest of my friends," he said softly. "Get them to safety... before that lunatic does what he wants."

Anita hesitated. Her eyes drifted up to his horns, then to the massive wings shifting behind him. She almost spoke—almost asked the dozens of questions burning in her chest. But she swallowed them down, straightened her back despite her wounds, and nodded once.

"...Understood," she said.

Lucifer glanced back at her over his shoulder, a faint smile ghosting across his lips despite the heaviness in his gaze.

"And Anita," he added quietly. "Don’t do anything reckless. Protect them. That’s your priority."

She managed a small smirk despite the blood on her lips. "I should be saying that to you."

His smile didn’t reach his eyes, but it lingered long enough for her to see. Then his wings spread with a quiet rush of air, casting long shadows across the broken street as dawn burned red across the horizon.

He turned his gaze upward, feeling the pulse of Adam’s departure like a silent drumbeat across the bones of the world.

Another war, he thought. Another end.

But not today.

Today, he would save what was his.

And live to burn tomorrow.

With a single step, he vanished, leaving Anita standing alone in the drifting smoke, staring after the silhouette of her king as he tore through the dawn sky.

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