Long ago, before the land was torn and kingdoms turned to ash, there stood cities that reached the clouds.
They were not built by gods, nor by elves or dragons. They were built by people. Mortals. By hands that bled and backs that broke under the sun. But they had something else—Settlement Seals. Ancient tokens of power that could shape the world. With these, a man could turn dry dust into farmland. He could raise walls from bare stone, build homes with a word, feed thousands from empty fields. These seals were gifts, or so people believed.
Some said they were relics left behind by forgotten gods. Others claimed they came from the stars. No one truly knew. What mattered was that they worked. And with them, people built cities that shone in the night like stars fallen to earth.
The greatest of these cities was Vareen, the Crown of the Waste. Its towers were made of moonstone and steel, wrapped in glowing sigils that never dimmed. The city hummed with life, fed by canals that never ran dry and gardens that bore fruit all year. Statues of the old gods stood at every gate and plaza—silent, serene, watching.
But peace never lasts.
As more cities rose and more seals awakened, something began to change. The gods—real or not—began to speak. Or perhaps they had always been speaking, and no one had listened. Their voices came not through priests, but through dreams and signs and shaking earth.
They demanded submission.
Worship. Obedience. Control.
A pact, they said, had been broken. Settlement Seals were not meant to be wielded freely. They were sacred. And their gifts came at a price: rule only in the gods' name. Build only in their image. Let no king rise unless crowned by the heavens.
Most bowed their heads. Most kingdoms bent the knee. They burned old laws and reshaped their cities in the forms the gods demanded. Temples replaced markets. Thrones were traded for altars. Rulers were declared High Servants, not sovereigns. The gods had no faces, only commands.
But one empire did not kneel.
It was old. Proud. Rooted deep in stone and fire. Its people had long believed in their own strength. They carved their laws into mountains and built libraries that stretched underground for miles. Their rulers were chosen not by blood, but by merit, by will. And when the gods came with threats and signs, this empire chose defiance.
They did not tear down their libraries. They did not burn their creeds.
Instead, they lit the city fires higher.
And so came the wrath.
It did not arrive in a day. It came slowly, like rot spreading beneath stone.
Crops failed first. Then sickness came—diseases without names that ignored all cures. Monsters, strange and twisted, began crawling from cracks in the earth. Earthquakes followed. Floods. Fire from the skies. The divine punishment was not swift, but thorough.
Vareen fell last.
Its people screamed beneath the eyes of their own gods. The same statues that once stood watch over feasts and festivals now loomed over fire and blood. Their stone faces never changed, even as towers crumbled and the streets filled with ash. The sigils that once gave warmth and light turned cold, flickering out one by one.
No heroes came.
No salvation arrived.
Only one man still crawled through the ruins.
He was old. Wounded. A Founder, once—one of the first to awaken a Settlement Seal. His name was forgotten, lost to fire and time. His robes were torn, and blood soaked his hands, but he still moved, dragging himself through a ruined shrine. Around him, the wind howled through hollow arches. The gods' voices—once distant—now whispered louder than ever.
He ignored them.
The shrine was cracked. Its altar broken. But beneath it, he placed a medallion, still glowing with faint light. It pulsed like a heartbeat, warm and steady. One last seal. The last unbroken spark.
"The first stone must be placed again…" he whispered, his breath shallow.
No one heard him.
No one saw the final glow fade beneath the altar's broken edge.
As the storm swept in and shadows swallowed the shrine, the last of the old world was buried. The gods turned their eyes elsewhere. The earth groaned and slept.
But power never truly disappears.
It only waits.
The land, now broken and wild, remembers nothing of the shining cities. Only scattered ruins remain, and whispered tales. Villages survive among the bones of the old empires. Bandits rule roads once lined with gold. Strange beasts roam fields that were once farms. And the gods?
They still demand obedience.
No king dares crown himself. No banner rises above the rest. Every attempt to build more than a village ends in blood, plague, or fire. They call it the Divine Decree—no sovereigns, no nations, no dreams beyond the dirt.
But legends say a seal remains.
Buried deep. Waiting.
And one day, someone will find it.
Someone forgotten. Someone low.
Someone who dares to build again.
In the shadow of gods, a spark still burns.
Author's Note
Thank you for reading the prologue of Villager to God-King: Building a Nation That Defied Heaven. This story has been a dream of mine to write—a journey about rising from nothing, defying fate, and standing against the gods themselves.
I'm still learning and growing as a writer, and I'm grateful to have you here at the start of that journey. Your feedback and support mean the world to me. The real adventure begins in the next chapter, and I can't wait to share it with you.