The humans were satisfied. Their thirst had been quenched, and the immediate discomfort in their throats had faded. For a few minutes, that was enough.

  But the calm did not last.

  From above, Ariana shifted her gaze toward the horizon and noticed the change first. The sky was slowly darkening, the orange hues giving way to deeper, colder tones. Arcadia followed its natural cycle.

  Below, the group still lingered near the stream when they began to notice the difference in the air.

  “This feels bad…,” one of the girls murmured, crossing her arms over her body. Her shoulders trembled slightly. “I can’t stop shaking.”

  The wind had grown colder, and the pieces of leather they wore did little to fight off the creeping chill.

  “I’m feeling it too,” the serious-looking young man said, inhaling deeply as goosebumps spread across his arms.

  The light was fading quickly. Shadows stretched and merged with the surrounding forest.

  “What should we do?” the blonde girl asked, turning directly to the serious young man. Her gaze sought direction.

  Almost instinctively, the others looked at him as well. No decision had been made, no discussion held, yet in that moment everyone seemed to accept that someone had to speak first.

  He felt the weight of their stares.

  “I—I don’t know…,” he replied, stammering slightly, nervous under a responsibility he hadn’t asked for. He glanced around, trying to think clearly. “Maybe… maybe we should hide somewhere.”

  Darkness deepened with each passing second. Arcadia had no artificial lights like Ariana’s former world. When the sun set, only the faint natural glow of the atmosphere remained—insufficient for human eyes to see clearly. Nocturnal animals were adapted to it. Humans were not.

  The forest began to change its sound.

  Insects echoed in the growing silence. Branches snapped in the distance. Something moved among the trees—not fast enough to signal an attack, but enough to be noticed.

  One of the girls grabbed another’s arm.

  “There’s something there,” she whispered.

  Ariana watched silently, attentive. Night was a test she did not need to create. It simply existed. And for creatures without claws, fangs, or night vision, darkness was more oppressive than any predator.

  The serious young man took another steady breath.

  “If we stay here… it’ll get colder,” he said, trying to organize his thoughts. “We need something that blocks the wind. Trees… maybe… a rock… a cave.”

  “A cave?” another repeated, uncertain.

  None of them truly knew what safety was. They only knew the darkness did not feel safe.

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  “Let’s go this way!” the serious young man said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

  The rest followed without argument. Darkness thickened with every step, and entering the forest only made it worse. The tree canopies blocked nearly all remaining light from the sky, and Arcadia’s natural glow was not enough to guide human sight.

  They hurried until they found a small clearing surrounded by trees. They stopped there, breathing heavily, instinctively clustering closer together.

  One of the young men looked up at the sky. The others followed.

  There were no stars.

  Of course… they did not even know what stars were.

  The darkness felt too deep, almost heavy. The sky was nothing but a silent void.

  High above, Ariana frowned slightly.

  “Maybe Arcadia is truly too dark at night…,” she thought.

  She had never struggled with it. Her divine vision cut through shadow, matter, and distance without difficulty. But for them… it was different. They were fragile in the dark.

  For a moment, she hesitated.

  She did not want to make things too easy. She did not want to turn the world into something artificially comfortable. But she also saw no reason to make it cruel beyond necessity.

  Then she had a simple idea.

  Ariana closed her hand, gathering mana into her palm. The energy accumulated quietly, dense and brilliant. It wasn’t something massive. Not a new law. Just an adjustment.

  When she opened her fingers, small points of light shot upward in absolute silence. One. Then another. Then dozens. Then hundreds.

  And then they began to spread.

  Small concentrations of mana, each the size of a clenched fist, positioned themselves high in the sky, scattered across Arcadia like suspended fragments of light. They were not intense. They did not replace the sun. But they broke the emptiness.

  The sky was no longer just black.

  It began to glow.

  Below, one of the girls widened her eyes and grabbed another’s arm.

  “Look!” she cried, pointing upward. “Look at the sky!”

  The others lifted their faces, and the silence that followed was different from the one born of fear.

  “So beautiful…,” she murmured, her eyes reflecting the small points of light that continued to appear one by one.

  The lights did not appear all at once. They emerged gradually, gently filling the sky. The forest no longer felt as oppressive. The shadows still existed, but now they had shape.

  The dark-skinned young man let out a slow breath.

  “It’s like… the sky is looking back at us.”

  Ariana remained still above them.

  They could not see her.

  If they could, they would have seen a young woman in a white dress suspended softly in the air, long green hair swaying under the newly illuminated night breeze. Her eyes would rest upon them with a mixture of curiosity and expectation, reflecting the glow of the stars she had created moments before.

  The area where the group stood now felt slightly less frightening, but it was far from comfortable. Branches littered the ground, dry grass, loose stones, and small plants surrounding them. They approached a low rock nearby and sat down together, side by side, instinctively seeking closeness.

  One of the girls was trembling more than the others. Noticing this, the dark-skinned young man moved closer and pressed his body against hers, trying to warm her. The gesture made both of them blush, but she understood he was only trying to help.

  The rest of the group watched the two for a few seconds. As if silently disapproving of the idea of doing the same, they turned their faces away and pretended not to notice. The serious young man kept a closed expression. Sitting against the rock, he held a small stone in his hand, staring at the newly lit sky. Distracted—or perhaps irritated—he tossed the stone upward and caught it before it fell.

  With a sharper motion, as if wanting to release something inside him, he hurled the stone against a larger one beside him.

  The impact produced quick sparks—almost invisible, but enough.

  The dry grass on the ground caught fire.

  The entire group’s eyes widened at once.

  The flame grew small and wavering, but alive. And almost without thinking, they moved closer. Their bodies were naturally drawn to the warmth, the glow, the sense of safety that light brought to darkness.

  Above them, Ariana floated with her mouth slightly open, her eyes just as wide.

  “Just like that?!” she exclaimed, surprised—almost too loudly.

  “Did you hear something?” one of the young men asked, glancing around.

  “I don’t think so…,” the blonde girl replied, her gaze returning to the fire, fascinated.