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[Seeker, oh Seeker. I have seen the stars. I witnessed the twinkling of a star resting in one place, and I understood that this location signifies Banat Allah. The sacred gleam of that place caused the stars to shine with the majestic voice of Al-Uzza, and under the seductive laughter of Al-Lat, the stars danced. Finally, Al-Manat guided me with the starlight, as the flames and stars resonated to create a path of light across the earth and the heavens.]

Ashtosh Singh began to speak calmly.

[In the lands of Europe, there exist barbarians who fancy themselves civilized. They revel in standing over others and trampling them, enjoying the spectacle of plundering brilliant civilizations. It is a cruelty that leads to a civilization built on steel and violence, thus countless items of civilization flow into their museums under the name of relics.]

[Do you know of a place at the equal apex between the three regions of Taif, Nakla, and Kudayd? A place where the daughters of God were once revered? The Arabs called them Banat Allah and worshipped them, deriving spiritual satisfaction from their reverence?]

[Yet, there are those who claim that a jealous God is the only one, calling Al-Lat, Uzza, and Manat mere trifles. They admonish you to cease your idol worship, decrying it as false worship and a reflection of your erroneous desires. When the forces clothed in military boots tread upon their sacred soil, it is evident that their lives were not risked to stop it.]

[It has flowed and finally settled in Germany, where it sleeps in the museum warehouse awaiting the old believers. They sing praises to the Almighty, exclaiming the eternal nature of the One, that there is nothing equal to the Great One but instead the jealous God who demands worship.]

[…Awaiting the very people who once erected massive stones and offered their devotions.]

The sacred stone of Banat Allah.

No, to be precise.

‘The stone of Al-Lat, Al-Uzza, and Al-Manat.’

Thus, the three are bundled together.

‘An object related to the Quraysh tribe…’

The object that Ashtosh Singh spoke of was indeed something Park Jinseong would find intriguing.

An altar shaped more abstractly than concretely.

An altar built not for a personal deity but rather to worship closer to a ‘concept,’ that was the sacred stone of Banat Allah.

Especially considering it was a primitive form of altar, that made it even more so.

When faith stirs in humans, what emerges early on is indeed the worship of something vast, and among them, the cult of megaliths prevails.

Yes.

It was certainly something Park Jinseong would find compelling.

“Hahaha. I once laid my eyes on it long ago.”

…If he hadn’t seen it, that is.

Of course, Park Jinseong had been to Germany.

Before the rewind, there was a significant incident in Germany.

The possession sorcerer, Huele, revealed himself by demolishing the German National Assembly.

He transformed into a grotesque meat chunk, multiplying and growing, collecting evil beings in the shape of upturned trees. It was a sight far scarier and more horrifying than the emergence of a great evil spirit…. It was a major event that made countless wrongdoers associated with wars disappear from Germany.

Huele would say.

They did not vanish, but rather reside within him.

He had become Hell, storing them inside and inflicting eternal suffering upon them.

As a possession sorcerer, I had nested them within my form, becoming their prison where they paid their just debts.

However, how can one be considered human when two out of the three—body, spirit, and soul—have gone missing?

If only spirit remains without body or soul, it’s called a thought; if only soul wanders without body or spirit, it’s called a ghost.

What Huele did was precisely that.

He devoured flesh to nourish his form, trapping souls inside so they could not escape. Constantly torturing them, he wore down their spirits until they faced psychological death, leaving only the soul behind.

Only the soul suffers endlessly in the hell fashioned by his own body, turning into firewood…

Park Jinseong visited when Huele extended his branches and roots throughout Germany.

He went during the time when the roots sunk into the ground and the branches twisted toward the sky, snatching and devouring people.

The first places he visited were the museums of Germany.

To search for items related to magic that Germany had hidden away so carefully.

Especially since Germany had a history of collecting all kinds of occult materials from around the world during the Nazi era, Park Jinseong had high hopes. Perhaps he could learn unfamiliar magic, find relics or divine objects related to the transcendent power Hitler desperately shouted about, or uncover something mythological—

He held onto that small hope.

Considering that valuable and useful items are typically kept in secret places or researched in highly secure research institutes, his expectation seemed rather misplaced.

But it was not without basis.

Germany, which had begun to shift rightward before the rewind, touted revolutionary findings of ancient artifacts discovered in various museums, and it claimed astonishing principles were discovered through research that led to artifacts being integrated into its projects.

If one considers that their propaganda might contain half or even one-fourth truth, it was sufficient to motivate him to take steps.

However, his expectations were betrayed.

The museums in Germany were mere exhibition spaces, storage units for things that looked nice but served no real purpose.

Where was the strength and remarkable technological advancement of Germany, then?

Where were the ‘museum research findings’ they cried out for?

If the propaganda was true, why couldn’t he find ‘ancient artifact research materials’ even after searching through the museums?

…Yes.

He had been fooled.

No.

The entire world had been deceived.

The nightmare from the Nazi era, the grand resurrection of a once-fallen Germany into the heart of the European Union, was a bluff that ensnared the world.

Ah, surely, it wasn’t entirely false.

If it had been completely a lie, the burden would have been heavier.

Yet, even the one-fourth truth he had generously considered was utterly ridiculous, and wondering if it might just be one-tenth true was beyond comprehension.

Such a bubble, there was no bubble like this.

‘They must have used the inflated budget on something else.’

Yet, it was not as if Germany had acted without any plan.

Their shouts for ancient artifact research and magical research were a smokescreen for a project they were ardently pursuing.

The Neo Uranprojekt.

It was a revival of the nuclear weapon development project conducted during Nazi Germany.

Yes.

While claiming to be about museums, relics, and artifacts, they were practically arming themselves with nuclear weapons.

A realistic decision.

Unlike Hitler, who obsessively bet on the occult, they chose to obtain powerful weapons that would have immediate effects instead of engaging in uncertain research that may or may not yield results.

However, how ironic that the first place to use the nuclear weapon they created was their own National Assembly?

Even more absurd was the fact that even after firing the nuke, they failed to truly defeat Huele.

…And it was equally ridiculous that the museums he had been disappointed in during the bombing had vanished as well.

“I have seen the sacred stone of Banat Allah.”

Park Jinseong recalled that time and slowly opened his mouth.

Then, smiling to himself, he recounted what he had seen.

“I lost the symbol, it eroded, and the verses from Surah 53, verses 19 to 23, were engraved upon it.”

The stone he had seen.

The ‘decoration’ that had been repainted over with the Quran, losing its form.

 

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