After hesitating for a few moments, Ariana decided to purchase the Natural Law card.

  At the very same instant, a card shimmering like a rainbow appeared in her hand. Its colors shifted slowly, as if something alive were contained within it. In the card’s description, a warning immediately caught her attention.

  [Caution: Natural Laws are irreversible.]

  [Use with extreme care.]

  Ariana swallowed hard.

  The possibility of failure crossed her mind like a shadow. If she made a mistake… what kind of damage would she cause to the world she had so carefully created? What consequences could something like that bring to Arcadia?

  She took a deep breath.

  Her fingers tightened slightly around the card before she closed her eyes. She cleared her mind of unnecessary thoughts and focused on a single thing.

  The Natural Law of Reincarnation.

  Just as the system had suggested, everything had to be perfect.

  Without opening her eyes, Ariana shattered the card in her hand.

  In the very next instant, a powerful energy spread across Arcadia. The entire world seemed to react. The force fluctuated—sometimes intense, sometimes unstable—as if struggling to settle into place.

  The system interface immediately appeared before her eyes.

  [Natural Law creation in progress…]

  [Processing information.]

  [Arcadia’s mana insufficient.]

  [Searching for alternative energy source.]

  [Connecting to host.]

  Ariana’s heart raced.

  [Assimilating Natural Law into world: Arcadia.]

  [Natural Law successfully created.]

  [Reincarnation System established.]

  The moment the final notification appeared, Ariana’s body—still floating in the sky—lost all support.

  She fell.

  Her body was violently pulled toward the ground, slamming into the earth with force. The impact knocked the air from her lungs. Ariana remained on the ground for several seconds, cold sweat covering her skin as her breathing turned heavy and uneven.

  Her body trembled.

  The mana within Arcadia had not been enough to sustain the creation of a Natural Law on its own.

  The world had compensated… by absorbing energy from her.

  Ariana closed her eyes for a moment, feeling deep exhaustion spread through every part of her body.

  She lost consciousness.

  Days passed.

  When Ariana finally woke up, she jumped to her feet like someone who had overslept for work. In an instant, she shot into the sky, frantically scanning Arcadia from side to side, as if searching for something she might have lost.

  Her heart pounded.

  She was afraid something had changed while she was unconscious. Afraid she had missed some critical transformation. After all, despite being a goddess—at least of Arcadia—the system imposed clear limits. She was not omnipotent. She did not know everything.

  Stolen story; please report.

  When she realized Arcadia remained exactly as before, she released a deep sigh of relief.

  She didn’t care how many days she had been asleep.

  There was something far more important to verify.

  The cycle of reincarnation.

  Ariana activated her special perception and carefully observed the living beings of the world. Almost immediately, she noticed something different. Every creature now possessed a new kind of energy within itself.

  Souls.

  Before, this had not existed. When a creature died, it simply ceased to exist. Now, something remained.

  For a brief moment, Ariana became pensive.

  “Could it be that my world… was also created by someone like me?” she wondered.

  The thought sent a chill down her spine. Thinking too much about it could easily drive her insane, so she pushed the idea to the back of her mind. That was something to reflect on in the distant future.

  Right now, there were more urgent matters.

  Ariana felt something new within herself.

  It wasn’t control over Arcadia itself. It was different. Something connected to the world… yet separate at the same time. Like a new domain that had awakened alongside the Natural Law.

  She extended her hand forward.

  With a single thought, space open.

  A dark fissure tore open before her, ripping through reality like a veil. Ariana didn’t hesitate and stepped forward, crossing through the rift.

  The surroundings changed instantly.

  She found herself in a dark, silent space. The sensation was strangely familiar—it reminded her of the void where she had first awakened, before Arcadia even existed.

  And yet, something was different.

  Ariana sensed that this place had limits. At the same time, she felt the strange sensation of being there… and in Arcadia simultaneously.

  She was standing on a massive floating island.

  There was no sky.

  No horizon.

  Only a vast, lifeless terrain stretching for kilometers ahead.

  Ariana walked slowly, observing her surroundings. She saw nothing. Heard nothing. Felt no presence.

  Until something caught her attention.

  A small rabbit.

  It hopped alone through that empty space. But something was clearly wrong. The rabbit had no fur. Its body was semi-transparent, glowing with a soft bluish hue, like a cold flame.

  Ariana approached.

  The rabbit did not flee when it saw her.

  She knelt down and extended her hand, as if to pet it.

  The moment her fingers touched it, images flooded her mind.

  A flash.

  She saw the rabbit’s final moments.

  The sudden attack.

  Fangs sinking into its neck.

  The wolf.

  Ariana slowly withdrew her hand, looking at the small rabbit before her with sadness.

  “Poor thing…” she thought.

  And yet, she knew.

  That rabbit’s death had served as food for the wolves.

  Just as she was about to observe this place more closely, Ariana sensed something strange.

  The same spiritual rabbit before her began to be pulled away.

  It wasn’t physical force. It felt like an external interference—an inevitable call. Ariana could clearly sense that it didn’t come from her. The space itself was reacting on its own.

  The rabbit’s soul began to unravel, slowly being drawn elsewhere.

  “What…?” Ariana murmured in surprise.

  Driven by curiosity, she followed the soul’s path with her perception. In an instant, her vision crossed space and returned to Arcadia.

  And then she saw it.

  The rabbit’s soul had been reborn.

  Now it was a newborn piglet, still trembling, taking its first breath in the world. Ariana watched the scene in silence.

  The cycle of reincarnation had begun.

  “So… that’s how it works,” she thought.

  Satisfied with the result, Ariana turned her attention back to the strange, empty space around her. Despite being pleased with Arcadia’s new system, something deeply bothered her.

  Everything there felt… far too dead.

  “System,” she called, breaking the silence. “Why is this place so empty?”

  The response came immediately.

  [Based on your memories and conceptual state at the moment of the Natural Law of Reincarnation’s creation, this location has been defined as the World of the Dead.]

  [A parallel dimension directly connected to Arcadia.]

  Ariana frowned slightly.

  The system continued.

  [Arcadia is a young world.]

  [It did not possess sufficient energy to sustain a complex spiritual dimension.]

  [To compensate, energy from you was utilized.]

  [Even so, the result was limited to the minimum functional level.]

  Ariana took a deep breath, absorbing the information.

  “So this is all it is… for now,” she murmured.

  More messages appeared.

  [This does not prevent future modifications.]

  [The system adapts to created Natural Laws.]

  [Improvements can be implemented as your world grows.]

  [And as you evolve.]

  Ariana’s gaze swept across that vast, empty expanse once again.

  A world of the dead in its most primitive state.