Miracle, Part Two

January 22, Berlin, eleven at night.

At this hour, most citizens, exhausted from a full day's work, had long since gone peacefully to sleep.

Yet the streets beneath the dim lights were still bustling.

Truck after truck, loaded with cargo, rumbled past, making the ground tremble faintly.

After decades of deindustrialization, Berlin had once again become an industrial city.

Factories filled the city, blazing with light and working day and night. Their forest of smokestacks had blackened the entire city, leaving none of its former luster.

Of course, the Prime Minister's office was still brightly lit, too.

Ever since receiving the devastating news, Prime Minister of the European Alliance Joseph and his bureaucrats had gone two nights and two days without sleep.

The immense pressure was on the verge of crushing him.

By now, dozens of scientists and bureaucrats who knew the truth had suffered mental breakdowns and taken their own lives.

This would certainly not be the final number.

Nor would it be the last time.

Because humanity's end had only just been rehearsed.

This time it was Pluto. Next time, it would probably be Neptune.

Given Neptune's enormous mass, if it disappeared, Earth would not remain as calm as it was now. Not only would Earth's orbit around the sun change and the global climate undergo violent upheaval, but the shift in gravity would also trigger a series of disasters.

Earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis...

Joseph had no doubt that one day the last string in his heart would snap, and he would meet the same end.

"According to reports from the Otherworld, if the sun falls into the Otherworld and then collides with something, it will unleash energy on the scale of a supernova for a short time!" a Science Advisor said gravely.

"How powerful?" a bureaucrat asked.

"That