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"Are you kidding me?! You guys do something too!"
The exact moment the second, massive meteor violently collided with the back of the first, the crushing kinetic force multiplied exponentially. Megumu Iizunamaru's arms buckled under the impossible weight, and she violently spat out a mouthful of hot, metallic blood. Her muscles screamed, veins bulging against her pale skin as the searing heat of the atmospheric entry singed her hair. Looking down through the blinding glare at the ancient Old Hags leisurely watching the apocalyptic show from the safety of the yard, she nearly ground her teeth to dust in sheer, unadulterated fury.
"Keep it up, I've got high hopes for you."
Yukari Yakumo merely waved her elegant folding fan with a serene, teasing smile. The morning breeze ruffled her blonde hair. She absolutely didn't want to lift a single finger; engaging in brute-force physical labor wasn't elegant at all. She was clearly a sophisticated, strategic type who planned within a comfortable silk tent to win a battle a thousand miles away, not a sweating, grunting physical brute like the Tengu leader above them.
What do you do when your supposed allies are shamelessly slacking off while you're agonizingly tanking all the heavy damage in the front lines? You flip the damn table and smash the lethal danger right into their smug faces; they'll absolutely have to move whether they want to or not!
Seeing that not a single one of the three ancient monsters intended to help her shoulder the crushing burden, Megumu's eyes flashed with spite. She simply let go.
With a burst of wind magic, she darted to the side, letting the millions of tons of superheated rock resume its terrifying descent. As it fell, she even spun mid-air and delivered a devastating, wind-infused kick directly to the side of the blazing rock, forcefully interfering with its natural landing point and sending the entire apocalyptic mass crashing directly toward Yukari Yakumo's smirking face.
Watching the blazing, mountain-sized meteor get closer and closer, completely blotting out the morning sun, Leo swallowed hard while lying paralyzed on the outdoor double bed. The deafening, roaring sound of the displaced air was shattering his eardrums. This terrifying scene was a bit too intense for his fragile mortal heart.
But currently trapped under the absolute, localized effects of Shion's thick streak of bad luck, let alone jumping up and running for his life, he had even violently choked on his own saliva just now while swallowing in fear. Unable to move a single muscle without courting a bizarre accident, he could only lie flat in Ran's golden fur and quietly wait for a fiery death where he lay.
Yuuka Kazami, who had been standing elegantly on the sloping roof of the ruined Farmhouse, finally frowned slightly. The rising heat was ruining her floral perfume. Seeing Yukari and Eirin still stubbornly watching the show with their hands tucked comfortably inside their wide sleeves, refusing to blink first, the Flower Master sighed.
She calmly folded her green parasol with a soft click, her form blurring. She instantly appeared suspended in the air directly beneath the blazing meteor, pulled back her slender arm, and casually threw a devastating, magic-infused upward punch.
BOOM!
The first massive meteor was violently smashed exactly like a ripe, explosive watermelon by Yuuka's fist. The concussive shockwave rippled across the sky, temporarily parting the clouds. Countless jagged, flaming rock fragments rained down indiscriminately like a shotgun blast on absolutely every corner of the farm.
This time, even the cheap, unsellable windbreak grass planted along the fences wasn't spared; the flaming debris incinerated it into white ash in seconds. The absolute only thing still physically intact on the entire smoking farm now was the Farmhouse itself, entirely shielded under Yuuka's projected magical protection.
"One down."
Yuuka lowered her fist, her voice perfectly calm over the sound of raining, hissing debris.
But down on the ground, the oppressive, freezing deep blue aura of misfortune radiating from Ishin Shion grew thicker and thicker, swirling like a toxic ink drop in clear water. As Shion finally closed her eyes and fully let go of her mental restraints, the pure, distilled misfortune that had been agonizingly suppressed for a thousand years spread wildly in all directions like a shockwave.
The suffocating, oppressive sense of cosmic unease and impending doom was felt viscerally even by Leo, a mere, magic-less mortal. His chest tightened, and the hair on his arms stood straight up.
"But... speaking of raindrops, the rain today is a bit heavy."
Leo managed to croak out the words, his eyes wide with absolute, primal terror as he stared up at the torn atmosphere.
The staggering amount of misfortune accumulated over a thousand miserable years simply couldn't be exhausted by just summoning one or two giant meteors. High in the stratosphere, the sky turned a bruised, apocalyptic purple. Meteors as dense and numerous as a torrential summer rainstorm appeared in the sky, their fiery trails crisscrossing and completely covering most of the geographical area centered on the farm, including Pelican Town and the dense Secret Forest.
Gulp... Leo violently retracted his previous, arrogant thought that no matter how conceptually powerful Shion was, she couldn't completely destroy Stardew Valley. If these hundreds of blazing meteors really fell and carpet-bombed the valley... he'd be spending the absolute rest of his natural life slowly, agonizingly rebuilding Stardew Valley from a molten crater!
"Hiss! Gensokyo was hiding such a massive bomb; how did I never notice before? Even if these gods have fallen from grace, none of them are pushovers."
Faced with this kind of undeniable, world-ending scale, Yukari finally stopped acting like a cool, untouchable expert. She stood up abruptly from the bed, her face turning dead serious. With rapid, fluid motions of her fan, she tore open dozens of dark, eye-filled Gaps in the air around the farm.
One by one, incredibly powerful Great Youkai were forcibly dragged and brought through the Gaps from their respective homes in Gensokyo. They were all just about to angrily ask what was going on when they were completely stunned into silence by the terrifying, apocalyptic scene of the burning sky. Without a single second of time for words or complaints, everyone immediately scattered into the air, quickly and efficiently assigning themselves specific clusters of meteors to deal with.
Reimu Hakurei walked out of a Gap rubbing her eyes with a deeply annoyed, sleepy look, as if her precious morning nap had been rudely disturbed. She brandished a small, glowing fist directly at Leo on the bed. He explicitly said he didn't want her expensive help, right?! So why was he indirectly begging her to save his life now?! With a frustrated huff, the Shrine Maiden turned into a blinding streak of red and white light and flew straight up, shattering the massive meteor closest to the ground into harmless dust with a single, devastating punch that broke the sound barrier.
Meanwhile, in the deep south of the Secret Forest.
"Cirno, don't go! You'll be flattened! Everyone else too, watch the animals! Don't let them leave the cabin!"
Inside the safety of the sturdy Hero's Hut, Daiyousei desperately wrapped her arms around Cirno's waist, digging her heels into the floorboards to physically stop the Ice Fairy from going out the door. This silly, overconfident child had seen the apocalyptic flaming meteors falling toward the lake and had actually condensed a massive, freezing greatsword made of solid ice crystals, completely ready to fly up and fight the space rocks for three hundred rounds.
If it weren't for Daiyousei crying and holding her back with all her might, the fragile Cirno would absolutely already be back in her bed in Gensokyo, angrily watching a 30-second unskippable system ad to respawn.
The other Little Fairies huddled together in the corners of the dark hut, weeping and trembling uncontrollably as they held their newly adopted baby cows, pigs, and sheep tightly against their chests. They were nearly moved to absolute tears of terror by the deafening, whistling sight of the approaching meteors threatening their new pets.
"Leave it to me. You guys stay hidden."
Yuuka Kazami suddenly materialized in the air directly above the Hero's Hut, her green hair whipping in the violent, hot wind. She calmly pointed the tip of her closed parasol up at a cluster of descending meteors, her eyes glowing crimson.
She fired massive, blindingly bright Master Spark Magic Cannons continuously into the sky, the searing beams of pure destructive energy pulsing as if they had absolutely no magical cooldown whatsoever. The roaring beams ground the massive meteors into fine powder in mid-air, and the valuable iridium and gold minerals contained within fell safely and sparsely to the forest floor like glowing snow, without causing much collateral damage.
One, two, three.
While Yuuka was systematically dealing with the meteors threatening the Secret Forest, the other Great Youkai elsewhere certainly weren't idle either, efficiently handling the burning rocks falling above their assigned sectors.
Eirin Yagokoro gracefully took out her legendary, cosmic bow. She stood firmly on the cratered ground of the farm, calmly drawing the string back and taking precise, lethal potshots one by one. Twang! Twang! Every single glowing magical arrow perfectly struck and detonated a meteor high in the stratosphere, fully and terrifyingly displaying the flawless, lethal style of an ancient, immortal powerhouse.
Yukari Yakumo stood defensively atop the newly constructed roof of her Yakumo Residence on the mountain. She rapidly opened massive, gaping Gaps in the sky above her to seamlessly swallow the massive falling meteors whole, and then maliciously transferred the exit portals directly above the flying Reimu. Beneath her feet was her own beautiful, expensive home—she had paid good money for it! Let the Shrine Maiden deal with the trash!
"Yakumo Yukari! This isn't over without 100,000 yen!"
Reimu glared furiously at the slacking, scheming old woman. With a frustrated scream, she brutally kicked the redirected, flaming meteor right back toward the stratosphere.
She had been completely, tragically unprepared when her own historic Hakurei Shrine was hit by Shion's meteor earlier; she had foolishly thought it was just condensed, illusionary magic that would safely vanish upon being physically broken. As a tragic result, her single defensive punch had turned her beloved shrine into a pile of splintered ruins from the sheer kinetic force of the massive, falling rock debris.
This time, however, she had painful experience and could control her explosive strength perfectly to vaporize the rocks instead of just cracking them.
But this wasn't the protected realm of Gensokyo after all. Without her conceptual "Wind Spirit Moon Shadow" cheat—her absolute, intrinsic invincibility within the barrier—Reimu couldn't be that effortlessly invincible here. Her stamina was draining. She could only afford to completely break the larger, city-destroying chunks; she couldn't manage to intercept the rest of the smaller, car-sized debris raining down.
"Phew, it's gone. Not a single drop left."
Having caused such an absolutely massive, apocalyptic scene, the freezing, deep blue aura around Ishin Shion finally vanished completely into thin air. All the toxic, heavy misfortune she had agonizingly accumulated over a thousand long years had been completely released. Her soul was now incredibly, blissfully clean and light.
The unprecedented, euphoric feeling of physical lightness made Shion stretch her arms comfortably overhead like a cat, a rare, genuine smile on her face—only to look down and see Leo completely breaking down in tears.
"Gone, everything's gone! My money, my farm, my beautiful Stardew Valley! What use do I have for so many raw minerals when I have no machines left to process them?!"
Leo curled up into a tight, miserable ball on the outdoor bed, his capitalist heart aching so much he could barely breathe. He was so incredibly stupid, really. Why did he have to arrogantly run his mouth and eagerly tell Shion to let loose her full power?! Wouldn't it have been infinitely better and safer to just go one by one and harvest the ore slowly?! Why was absolutely everyone from Gensokyo so casually capable of causing such massive, uncontrollable, world-ending scenes?! It's completely toxic!
"Um... are you okay? I explicitly told you not to get too close to me. But it's fine now!" Shion poked the weeping Leo somewhat sheepishly on the shoulder.
She honestly felt great now; a thousand years of heavy, suffocating misfortune had been swept away in five minutes. In the future, even if she passively kept her cursed ability active, the absolute worst that would happen to anyone around her is harmlessly tripping on flat ground or stubbing a toe. By maintaining a healthy, regular balance of releasing bad luck, massive misfortune basically wouldn't accumulate to this world-ending degree ever again.
It was just incredibly hard on Leo's wallet right now.
Aside from the magically protected, relatively intact Farmhouse and the double bed they were sitting on, Leo's absolute only remaining agricultural assets in the world were the few small wooden boxes containing the rare strawberry seeds and other spring seeds that Megumu and Aya were currently clutching tightly in their arms to protect them from the debris.
This wasn't just being financially set back to before the Liberation; this brutal wave of destruction sent his farm straight back to the primitive, hunter-gatherer society of day one.
Even though incredibly valuable Meteor Minerals—glowing purple Iridium, shiny gold, and raw iron—were scattered everywhere across the smoking craters as far as the eye could see, the raw, unprocessed ore simply wasn't nearly enough to instantly compensate for Leo's massive infrastructural and crop losses.
Huddled deep in the Great Fox's warm, comforting embrace, Leo was so completely heartbroken he was about to start dropping little pearls of tears onto Ran's fur. Even though the dusty area around the double bed was now crowded with powerful Great Youkai landing to watch the commotion, Leo didn't even have the energy to look up.
He didn't even have the promised agricultural rewards or cash left to pay absolutely everyone for helping save his life now. The artisan crop boxes were smashed to splinters; he only had raw, unplanted seeds left to his name.