New Gods of North America

After leaving the cathedral, Wayne sat in a carriage speeding back to Georgeburg, pondering Bishop Corleone's words.

Bishop Corleone set a high tone, calling it a 'war,' and Tom Hagen, unusually, did not assist Wayne in interpreting it.

Even the slow-witted Wayne realized at this point that this might be a 'test' from the cathedral.

But what was the test question?

He wasn't an insider of the church, and the authority of the bishop and the cathedral hadn't been challenged.

Tom Hagen could bring over a piece of paper and effectively suspend the local high-ranking clergy, even disrupting their staff and making them busy.

This efficiency was higher than 'releasing military power with a cup of wine;' Bishop Corleone didn't even need to show his face, which didn't look like 'loss of power' at all.

Wayne pondered the information he had recently gathered and felt that the more likely possibility was that the cathedral wanted him to prove through the investigation results that the detective agency was completely unrelated to the Church of Light.

He also had to assist the cathedral in identifying the priests—Bishop Corleone's words had a 'rather kill than let go' feel, and the detective agency, as an outsourced team and temporary worker, might need to 'play the white face' and do some offensive work.

Wayne was relatively 'taking money to eliminate disasters' in this regard.

Since the client had made a work request, he would do it.

However, work also required methods, so Wayne first returned to the church in Georgeburg and politely gave the priests a heads-up.

The high-ranking clergy all seemed to be shrewd people.

Wayne had just finished giving Priest Tirrell and Priest Bazzini, who were together, a heads-up when he saw a profound smile on Priest Bazzini's face. The other high-ranking clergy also had different expressions, but on the surface, they all expressed support and cooperation.

Anyway, those who could understand would understand, and if they couldn't, Wayne could only guarantee that 'things would look good on the surface,' at least he didn't 'act first and report later.'

Then they divided into several groups.

Ineisha went to investigate the sacrifice of the demon hunter team. Theoretically, the main traffic arteries of Georgeburg were currently set up with checkpoints, but this place had a developed water system, and if a single murderer really wanted to sneak away, it felt like there were always more solutions than problems.

Lena was specially pulled out of the detective agency by Wayne and asked to take people to go through the priests' residences again. This time, they might have to roughly search for hidden safes and the like. Although in principle they still wouldn't look closely at documents and letters, if they found objects that obviously belonged to 'heresy,' they couldn't escape.

As for Wayne himself, he went to find the attacked Mr. Wiseman. A team of demon hunters had been sacrificed, but only he was knocked unconscious. Who would believe he was completely innocent?

He planned to go through these three lines first, and then talk to the priests and play 'script murder,' trying to explore other clues from the confessions.

The detective agency didn't have partners and the main force guarding the house at the moment, but he couldn't care about that.

He could only let Doug and Damon McReady, whose image affected the city's appearance, stay behind. If they encountered any situation, they would quickly release the birds to inform them and then quickly evacuate their people.

Fortunately, in the territory of Georgeburg, the cathedral's manpower, the demon hunter association under Priest Tirrell, and the local demon hunting department, these three largest teams of church personnel were temporarily under Tom Hagen's control.

If there were any ignorant guys who came to the door at this time, then don't blame Wayne for diverting the disaster eastward and inciting the army to take revenge.

...

Mr. Wiseman, who had been attacked, had been moved to another place at this time.

If the murderer wanted to come over to silence him again, the difficulty would be much lower than before, but it would be more difficult for the murderer to escape quietly after the incident.

In Wayne's words, Tom Hagen was using this guy as 'bait,' acting like 'inviting a king into a jar.'

It didn't matter whether Mr. Wiseman died or not, but the murderer had eliminated a team of demon hunters, which was officially making an enemy of the church.

It was also because of this premise that Tom Hagen allowed Wayne to try some 'local methods.'

As long as he could catch the murderer or advance the investigation, he could temporarily pretend to 'not see it.' If there was a problem, he would let Wayne explain it to the bishop himself.

'Mr. Wayne, what are you doing?'

In the room, the statue confirmed as 'Light of Dawn' was held out under the supervision of the demon hunters.

And a revolver with only one bullet was handed to Mr. Wiseman by Wayne.

Wayne didn't hide his thoughts:

According to my guess, since the murderer who cleaned up Pastor Shire's manor came to try to attack you before, it means you are related to Pastor Shire or the Church of Light.

'I need Mr. Wiseman to shoot this statue to eliminate a wrong answer for us. The gentleman next to you is a professional painter. Afterwards, we will paint Mr. Wiseman's heroic image at this moment into a portrait and publish it in the newspaper to see if the people of the Church of Light will have any reaction.'

Mr. Wiseman was shocked: 'Is that okay?!'

Wayne nodded, 'Don't worry, I asked, and the church would have destroyed this statue anyway. Now we are doing this, at most the destruction process is not compliant, but there is no major problem in principle, at most we will be scolded.'

Mr. Wiseman almost wanted to throw the revolver back: 'No, that's not what I asked...'

'Mr. Wiseman, I must remind you. Whether you shoot or not, your angry and destructive posture of the evil god statue will be reported tomorrow.'

Wayne continued to say next to him, 'But if you refuse to do it, it will greatly increase the suspicion that you are a believer of the evil god.'

As Wayne spoke, he silently retreated to the door, quietly protecting the demon hunters in front of him.

He had suffered a great loss from this statue. Although the people of the church said that this thing no longer had extraordinary reactions, it was still better to be careful—the demon hunters were still using special wooden boxes to transport this statue.

Half of Wayne's words were actually scaring Mr. Wiseman. Currently, the only thing that could be confirmed to be related to the Church of Light was that old man Pastor Shire, who didn't know if he was dead or alive.

Now Wayne wanted to destroy this statue mainly to see the murderer's position, and it was not too related to this Mr. Wiseman.

The second idea was to put on a posture of being incompatible with the 'Church of Light,' which could also be considered as showing loyalty.

This was an idea provided by Lena. As a 'God-favored one' of wisdom, Lena had considerable experience in some aspects.

Most devout evil god believers cannot accept the destruction of 'holy images,' and the 'relationship' and 'purity' between the murderer and the Light faith can be roughly judged based on his reaction.

If the murderer is a 'very pure' evil god believer, then his subsequent actions can be estimated according to the 'fanatic' standard, and it is estimated that he will 'not be a gentleman if he does not avenge this hatred.'

But if the murderer is 'not so pure,' the subsequent behavior analysis can mainly start from the 'pros and cons' aspect. Maybe the Church of Light is completely a cover in this case, otherwise the murderer would not have left this statue in the manor before.

However, according to Wayne's stereotype, there is generally no good end to destroying this kind of mysterious statue in horror movies.

Wayne himself didn't want to be involved in this kind of cause and effect, and the church's demon hunters shouldn't suffer this kind of unwarranted disaster, so they could only make Mr. Wiseman suffer.

Debts have owners, and Mr. Wiseman, if he knows enough about the murderer, will know how much risk he will take in doing so, and whether it will lead to a real break between him and the murderer.

Afterwards, comparing the actions of these two sides, a preliminary answer can be obtained.

Mr. Wiseman in the room held the gun, looked at the statue and then looked at Wayne who was encouraging him, his eyes wandering.

Unexpectedly, he raised his hand and pointed the gun at Wayne.

'Bang!'