Chapter One – The Brass-Colored Domain

“Is this the Demon Realm?”

Little White Dragon stood on a sandy rise; golden dunes rolled like waves, lifting her small frame so she could look down on the city.

“More precisely, this is the core of the Demon Realm,” Nidhogg said, head tilted toward the little dragon. “Their lands spread far, maybe twice the Dragon Territory. But they have only one city—this one.”

“The Eternal Gold,” Litt murmured, dazed, the name hanging like sunlight on metal.

“I thought it’d be grander,” he said, breath flat as dust. “It looks like other cities I’ve seen. It doesn’t strike me like the Dragon Territory did.”

Lilith felt a small sting of disappointment before her eyes cut back to the vista. Since they’d stepped into the Demon Realm, Nidhogg had fed her legends like embers: the Eternal City’s Golden Guard, the Necroblade that ruled the wartime sky, demons who sheared the wings off valkyries.

What hooked the Little White Dragon most was the only city of the Demon Realm, famed as the Eternal Gold—in the demon tongue, Bosaklie, their capital. The story said the city wasn’t laid with brick and sand. It was, in truth, a colossal turtle.

That turtle had trudged through yellow sands for ten thousand years. Endless dust etched its shell, the wind caking grime into thick plates. The first demons built Bosaklie atop that gathered filth—thus began the “gold” in Eternal Gold.

Hope rose first in Lilith’s chest, then in her eyes: she wanted to see a giant turtle walk the desert and stony flats; even one glimpse could make her forgive the sun’s harsh bite.

But disappointment settled like shade. From outside, the Eternal Gold looked like any city. Well—any city in this world, almost. In a land woven by magic, Bosaklie had no wizard spires spearing the clouds, no cathedrals sprawling like stone oceans. Instead, chimneys lifted iron throats and breathed gray smoke, and brass-toned factories lined the blocks like ranks of gears.

Finding a kind of civilization she could parse did please the dragon; the sight felt familiar as rain. Yet the Eternal Gold hadn’t leapt beyond her imagination. It wasn’t wild enough to make the Little White Dragon gasp.

“Ten minutes,” Nidhogg said suddenly, voice as calm as cooled steel. Lilith looked up; the Black Dragon held a pocket watch from gods-knew-where, gaze lowered to the vast city below the red cliff.

“Ten minutes for what?” Lilith asked, a crease in her brow.

“Your chance to take it back,” Nidhogg said lazily, sitting on the high scarlet ledge. “In ten minutes, this city will give you a surprise.”

“So we wait here?” Lilith sat beside her, mood a ripple rather than a wave. She swung her slender legs, killing time with the rhythm. “Fine. Ten minutes I can handle.”

“I won’t let you down,” Nidhogg said, arm sliding around Lilith’s waist. Lilith leaned in, obedient as moonlight, tucking the wings she couldn’t fold away against the Black Dragon’s chest.

“Then I’ll wait—nice and quiet.”

Litt and Abaddon ignored the little blaze of cuddling. They sat off to one side and waited, patient as stones.

“Do you know what’s coming? Mom told me you’re from the Demon Realm,” Litt whispered, teeth grazing Abaddon’s ear like a mischievous breeze.

“I do, of course. But it’s better you see,” Abaddon slipped from his damp breath, her cheeks touched with a faint, reluctant pink.

Ten minutes later, Lilith opened her mouth to nudge Nidhogg; another minute and she’d be half-buried in sand.

The ground spoke first—deep tremors thudded up through her feet. The earth heaved, the cliff’s bones hummed, and below the red escarpment four chimneys surged from the city, spearing the sky, each perhaps a thousand meters tall.

Wooooo— A steam-locomotive’s low whistle rolled out, and pure white vapor poured from Bosaklie like cloud-breath. The massive city seemed to wake. Brass chimneys and toothed wheels rose from the streets; Lilith saw, clear as firelight, endless brass gears climb from ordinary roads, with levers locking into them like ribs into a spine. The city became a precision engine. It came alive.

That wasn’t all. After a third hum tore the sky like a drawn bow, Bosaklie lifted. The city, long buried by sand, wormed its way up grain by grain, showing the sunrise, the dust, the desert, the red rock—and a passing White Dragon—its whole body.

It wasn’t a mere city. It was an island—a giant isle driven by steam, brass, gears, and coal.

The lower half was black and slick, a darkness Lilith knew: soot from coal burning, staining anything it touched. Black pipes exhaled clean white steam, the contrast stark as ink on paper. The steam became motion, the motion became legs; with a black belly and a golden back, the giant turtle crawled forward, step by patient step, over yellow sand.

Lilith couldn’t name the feeling that surged when the city wrenched itself upright—shock, awe, joy layered like lacquer. Brass frames filled with steam and coal; yellow sand couldn’t stain even a filament of that white vapor.

The Eternal Gold parted the desert’s endless river of flying grit. It walked, steady and unbowed, toward the horizon.

“That’s why the Demon Realm has only Bosaklie,” Nidhogg said, voice soft as dusk. “It can roam wherever it wants.”

“There are more secrets buried within the Eternal Gold,” Abaddon said, rising as if lifted by wind. She patted her skirt, then bowed to the Little White Dragon, a gray-white girl cool as frost, with a glow she couldn’t hide.

“Welcome to my homeland. The Demon Realm welcomes every guest from afar.”