The sun dipped below the horizon, leaving the sky over Suka Makmur Village wrapped in an ink-black shroud, devoid of a single star to adorn the nighttime dome. The village atmosphere, usually filled with the chirping of crickets and relaxed chats on front porches, suddenly plunged into an eerie, suffocating silence—an unnatural hush, as though nature itself was holding its breath before unleashing its fatal fury.

Inside their rundown shack, Danu sat cross-legged on the edge of the bamboo cot. A clean cloth bandage wrapped snugly around his right temple, covering the scratch left by a gravel stone hurled by the villagers at the hall earlier that afternoon.

Pak Slamet, his father, sat hunched over on a wooden chair near the kitchen table. The middle-aged man looked deathly pale, his eyes swollen, hands trembling endlessly as they gripped a cup of warm tea that had long since grown cold. Guilt, terror, and despair warred inside the father's chest after witnessing his son driven out and pelted with stones by the very people they had known for a lifetime.

"Danu..." Pak Slamet rasped, his voice trembling as he fought back a fresh wave of sobs choking his throat. He gazed at his boy with eyes full of agonizing guilt. "That wound on your temple... does it still hurt, son? I'm so sorry... I'm such a useless father. When they threw stones and drove you out of the village hall this afternoon, I could only stand there paralyzed behind your back... I couldn't do a single thing to protect you..."

Danu turned his head slowly. He offered his father a gentle, reassuring smile, then slipped off the cot and walked over to Pak Slamet. He dropped to one knee before his father, wrapping his hands firmly around the old man's cold fingers.

"Don't talk like that, Dad," Danu said, his voice soft yet unyielding. "You didn't do anything wrong. They're just a mob of people blinded by panic and lies. This cut on my temple is nothing compared to the lifetime of burdens you've carried all on your own."

Pak Slamet shook his head weakly, tears spilling over to wet the back of Danu's hands. "But... but we've been banished now, Dan. Pak Darma and the villagers threatened to finish us off if we don't leave. Where on earth are we supposed to go tomorrow morning? What does any of this matter if we end up losing everything?"

Before Danu could answer his father, the air outside the house suddenly hissed violently.

Whoosh!

The calm nighttime breeze abruptly morphed into a raging gale. The wind howled loudly, slamming against the warped bamboo walls of their shack until the old joints groaned in protest. The banana trees in the yard whipped back and forth wildly, grating against each other to create a terrifying, chaotic screech.

Pak Slamet gasped, pulling his hand back and staring toward the small window with horror. "What is that sound...? I've got a terrible feeling about this, Dan. The night wind feels wrong... icy and bone-chilling."

Danu slowly rose to his feet. He walked over to the small wooden window facing east, cracking it open just enough to peer outside.

The instant the window opened, a fierce gust carrying an acrid, heavy reek of sulfur rushed straight into the room. Simultaneously, right before Danu's eyes, the empty air in his bedroom rippled violently.

Without a summon, the translucent holographic screen of the Sacred Farming System flared to life automatically. The display no longer glowed a soft blue; instead, it flashed wildly with blinding, blood-red pulses.

[CRITICAL SYSTEM WARNING: ATMOSPHERIC ANOMALY DETECTED!]

Late-stage Spore Storm Activated Simultaneously! Wind Vector: East to West (Velocity: 45 Knots). Airborne Composition: Billions of high-density parasitic Fusarium OXY spores. Target Status: Dispersal of aggressive mutation parasites across a 500-hectare territory initiates this second!

Gazing at the crimson warning data glaring before him, Danu drew a deep, steady breath. His heart hammered—not from fear, but from the stark realization that the exact moment of absolute ruin he had foretold had arrived at their doorstep.

"Danu? What's on that transparent screen? Your face is completely pale, son!" Pak Slamet asked anxiously, pushing himself up from his chair to hurry to his boy's side.

Danu shook his head slowly, pointing his chin out the window. "Look out there, Dad. The storm has arrived."

Pak Slamet pressed his face against the window gap, staring out across the sweeping expanse of village farmland stretching beneath the faint moonlight veiled by storm clouds.

From the eastern sky, dense, pitch-black clouds spun into a massive, terrifying vortex. Lightning ripped across the sky with thunderous roars, tearing open the ink-black night blanketing the entire network of melon fields belonging to the villagers and Pak Darma.

"Dear God..." Pak Slamet whispered in choked horror, clapping both hands over his mouth as he stared at the distant spectacle. "The sky... the sky looks like it's bleeding fire. That storm wind is heading straight for the villagers' farms!"

"That isn't just an ordinary windstorm, Dad," Danu said, his voice dropping into a heavy, icy authority. "It's a spore storm. Millions of parasitic rotting microorganisms are being carried on tonight's wind, scattering without mercy into every single inch of the farmland the villagers worship."

"But... but isn't there any way to stop it, Dan?" Pak Slamet pleaded, his voice shaking with terror as he pitied what awaited his neighbors tonight. "Even though they were cruel to us today and drove us out, they're still human beings... if those farms are entirely wiped out, hundreds of families in this village will starve to death."

Danu locked eyes straight onto his father. His gaze reflected extraordinary maturity and firmness.

"The door to safety was opened long ago, Dad. I went down to the village hall this afternoon just to warn them to harvest early," Danu answered calmly yet firmly. "And how did they repay me? They laughed in my face, framed me as a saboteur, pelted my head with stones, and drove us out like dogs."

Danu drew a long breath, continuing in a glacial tone: "Those who close their ears tight against a warning must ultimately pay the price themselves in the heart of the storm."

Pak Slamet fell silent. He couldn't refute his son's words. Regret always arrived too late for the arrogant.

Suddenly, amid the howling fury of the storm raging outside, a strange sound began to drift faintly from the yard and distant fields.

It wasn't the whistling of the wind or the rustling of ordinary leaves.

Hisssss... scratch... scratch... ssshhhh...

Danu and Pak Slamet froze, cutting off their conversation. Both strained their ears, tuning in to the mysterious noise growing steadily clearer as it crept closer from outside the walls of the house.

"What is that sound, Dan...?" Pak Slamet whispered in panic, gripping Danu's sleeve tightly. "It feels like... like thousands of living things gnawing away at something in the dark."

Danu didn't reply. His eyes narrowed into sharp slits, staring into the pitch-black yard beyond the window.

In the corner of his vision, the system interface flashed a new, highly specific warning text:

[OUTDOOR BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY ACTIVE]

Parasitic spores attaching to secondary hosts. Plant cellulose penetration process initiating simultaneously.

At that exact second, the weird hissing sound morphed into a horrifying crunching noise. From outside the bamboo walls of their shack, the sound of thousands of invisible organisms swarming, destroying, and chewing through plant stalks simultaneously tore through the dead silence of the night.

It sounded like a choir straight from hell—signifying that the true agricultural apocalypse was swallowing the entirety of Suka Makmur Village down to the last scrap.