Votis Kingdom
Also see Nox Aurelia City
The First Crown of the Deep Age
Long before Nox Aurelia.
Long before the Arc.
Long before steel towers pierced the sky and forgotten kingdoms became dust beneath newer empires.
There was Votis.
The oldest kingdom remembered by surviving records.
The first great realm where demons and humans dwelled beneath a single banner.
In those distant centuries, the world remained untamed. Vast forests stretched beyond the horizon. Mountains stood unconquered. Roads were little more than trails carved by travelers, merchants, and warriors seeking their fortunes.
Yet amid the wilderness rose a single city.
Votis.
The First Capital.
The Crown of the World.
From its black stone walls, roads reached outward like spokes from a wheel, connecting countless villages, farms, fortresses, and settlements that depended upon the city for protection.
The kingdom possessed only one capital.
It needed no second.
For all roads led to Votis.
And all loyalties returned there.
At its center sat a throne claimed not through inheritance, but through strength.
Upon that throne ruled the Great Demon King.
The greatest ruler of the First Age.
The Last Crown before the age of empires.
The King of Votis.
Though his name has been lost to time, his deeds remain.
The old records describe a warrior of terrifying power.
A king who carried scars like scripture.
A king whose body bore the history of wars written directly into flesh.
A king whom armies feared.
A king whom monsters followed.
Yet the prosperity of Votis did not arise from fear alone.
For the oldest stories tell of another.
A Valkyrie.
A celestial warrior who descended from the heavens during an age of endless war.
Many expected bloodshed between them.
Many expected conquest.
Many expected betrayal.
Instead, something stranger occurred.
The Valkyrie remained.
And the Demon King changed.
The wars did not cease entirely.
Such things were impossible in the First Age.
Yet under their watch, the roads became safer.
The harvests grew richer.
Villages prospered.
Trade flourished.
Children lived long enough to become elders.
The kingdom expanded until it became the largest realm the world had ever known.
Thus, the old saying emerged:
“Votis prospered because its king loved.”
Some historians dismiss this as romantic fiction.
Others point toward the centuries of peace and abundance that followed her arrival.
The truth has long since vanished.
Only the legend remains.
When the Last War finally arrived, the Great Demon King stood before annihilation and made a choice no ruler before him had ever made.
He chose his people.
He chose the kingdom.
He chose sacrifice.
The ancient chronicles claim he gave his life so that Votis might endure.
The Valkyrie survived him.
The kingdom did not.
The centuries that followed shattered Votis into memory.
Its villages disappeared.
Its roads vanished.
Its monuments collapsed.
Its name became myth.
Yet beneath the foundations of every age that followed, the bones of Votis remained.
Waiting.
For kingdoms may die.
Empires may crumble.
Cities may forget their origins.
But the First Crown is never truly gone.
And somewhere beneath every story of kings and kingdoms still echoes the memory of the Demon King who loved a Valkyrie enough to save the world he built around her.