A Miracle, Part Three

As more and more people noticed the celestial body in the night sky.

All of Berlin began to stir. Countless people awoke from their dreams and hurried outside, some in panic, others out of curiosity, to gaze up at the sky.

There was no way to hide it.

It hung high in the sky, completely unobscured, openly proclaiming its arrival. Even ordinary people could see a bright spot the size of a ping-pong ball, suspended overhead and vying with the moon for brilliance.

The streets gradually filled with people, a vast, dark mass. Every street was completely blocked by the crowds.

Some people shouted incessantly, so excited that their hands and feet trembled and their words came out in a jumble.

Others gazed up at the sky for a long time, silent as statues.

Even the military police, who had been urgently deployed on orders from the Prime Minister's Office to maintain order, had mostly forgotten their duties and could only stare blankly at the sky.

The sight before them was putting humanity's imagination to the test.

Children's cries, shouts of pent-up emotion, and the voices of countless people blended together. The entire city was filled with a noisy buzz that even the piercing sirens couldn't drown out.

Shock, delight, hope—or hatred, alarm, and fear—showed on every face.

The people seemed to be looking up at a savior God, yet at the same time they seemed to hate a demon about to destroy the world.

Compared with a creation on the scale of a celestial body, even the fearsome, savage gods of old seemed utterly insignificant.

Though it was still far away, people could imagine its immense size, and shuddered at the thought.

A celestial body that large, even if it merely fell from space, would bring an extinction-level catastrophe