New Gods of North America.

Chapter 689 Archives
Upon arriving at the scene, the cultivators who had arrived earlier were already busy with their own tasks: some were searching the outer perimeter, some were conducting on-site investigations, and others were somewhat idle.

This also reveals the general division of labor among the monks. Members of the guard like Brother Merlin are concerned with finding the murderer as quickly as possible. Some monks seem to be more involved in investigation or research, and their responsibilities are probably to reconstruct the scene of the crime. As for the rest who are on standby, they seem to be ordinary church guards or medical personnel.

They're a large organization, after all; the division of labor is clear, and everyone performs their duties.
Unlike small, self-sustaining organizations like detective agencies, where even the partners are constantly busy...

There's no one at the scene who needs treatment right now, and it's late at night, so there's obviously no one to bother the investigation. It's normal for them to rest for a bit.

The detective agency has found another hidden hideout for the sailors' gang, and the cathedral has once again updated the killer's movements. It can only be considered a slight gain amidst the misfortune.

The total number of people who have died at the three locations now exceeds the total number of Sailor Gang members identified by the intelligence team.

The reason for the error is that the detective agency has a strict definition of gang members. Only legitimate gang members are included in the statistics. Part-time thugs or their family members are not included. Moreover, the number of gang members is actually dynamic. Some people may not participate in gang activities on a regular basis, while others may be temporarily recruited and promoted to full membership.

But the white-masked man clearly didn't care about such things; he would kill whoever he encountered.

At the scene of the small gathering of the sailors' gang, even the cook and the maid were killed. According to the detective agency's standards, those people were not within the scope of the planned strike.

After confirming the basic situation, Wayne found Brother Merlin in a patch of grass where stray dogs had defecated on the outskirts of the scene, and then approached him.
Brother Merlin must have received the latest news from the cathedral by now, and upon seeing Wayne approach, he spoke immediately:

"After it was confirmed that the murderer was most likely Jason Wohrtz, some related files were declassified on a small scale. Your detective agency is now assisting in the arrest, so you also have the right to know some of the contents."

Jason Wohrtz has been confirmed to possess at least three extraordinary abilities, which are suspected to originate from the realms of 'death,' 'darkness,' and 'nature,' respectively. It is probably because of this mixture of realms that his overall intelligence and actual combat strength are relatively low.

"After fully entering the extraordinary state, his size will increase significantly, his strength and defense will be greatly enhanced, he will lose the sense of pain and will not bleed, exhibiting obvious 'immortal' characteristics. However, there is an upper limit to the maintenance of this state, which should theoretically be related to his own spiritual power, and the manifestation of this is a decrease in endurance or physical strength."

"His teleportation ability is similar to that of some evil spirits in the 'dark' realm, and is suspected to be related to the warp. The longest distance recorded in the files is close to 50 yards, and he can ignore various obstacles such as buildings, but his landing point usually appears near living creatures at the scene. Some exorcism measures can effectively prevent him from entering, but they can only be set up in places like prisons. This ability can be used continuously without time intervals, and the maximum number of times it has been observed to be used in a single transformation is 4."

"As for his 'resurrection,' the priests believe that it is a mixture of the 'regeneration' characteristics of the 'nature' realm—that is, the common meaning of 'nature gradually recovers its vitality over time'—so every time he is exhausted, he needs to find a place to 'cocoon' to recover. If he is destroyed, the 'cocoon' location may be far off, with a travel range roughly equivalent to a town, but the recovery will be slower."

Although Wayne had witnessed some of the extraordinary abilities firsthand, he hadn't expected the cathedral to have such detailed records. It seemed the church had suffered before, or perhaps they had only gradually uncovered these details after the arrests.

Wayne stood there for a moment, then checked with Brother Merlin to confirm the details he hadn't mentioned earlier: "So those knives he used were actually part of his body?"

Brother Merlin nodded as he searched for footprints on the ground with his kerosene lamp: “Yes. Whether it’s his small size or his enlarged form, including his clothes and mask, they are essentially the embodiment of a vengeful spirit—according to the conclusions of the exorcist priests, this may be partly due to his psychological projection.”

It's a pity. If he could use this ability to turn into gold coins, he would at least be able to live a life of plenty, if not become incredibly wealthy. But considering that he is now a materialized vengeful spirit, he probably doesn't need to eat anymore, right?

If we analyze it carefully, that guy doesn't feel pain after transforming and can revive, so there's no possibility of forcing the opponent back. On the contrary, we have to worry about the opponent trading one for one.
The teleportation ability seems to have a limit on the number of times it can be used, but since there's no skill cooldown, you have to be wary of the opponent's "fast and slow attacks".
Destroying his weapon is pointless; he just throws it away for fun. Once it flies away, he can immediately pull out another one. Besides, killing him would make him even harder to find. The most reasonable way to capture him is probably to wear down his stamina and then have the cultivators put on some kind of seal.

No wonder that guy suddenly disappeared last night... he must have run out of battery?
Wayne had already had a vague idea of ​​what was going on on his way here, but now he felt something was off: "Brother Merlin, in his current state, does he still have the ability to think normally?"

Brother Merlin straightened up and recalled briefly: "The records say that in his normal state, his intelligence is roughly equivalent to that of a ten-year-old child. He can communicate normally with people and has the corresponding comprehension ability. After fully entering the extraordinary state, his rationality seems to decline significantly, becoming more like those evil spirits who are left with only obsession. His animalistic nature becomes far greater than his human nature."

Wayne knew that the guy could speak human language when he was still "Little Shorty," and back then he timidly lied to Sanders.

If it's a child's intelligence, it's not surprising that they might be driven to help with certain tasks—sometimes children actually value promises more than adults, especially those with somewhat obsessive or distorted personalities.

But there's clearly a problem here.
Wayne cleared his throat slightly, signaling to Brother Merlin to stop searching for footprints in the grass and focus on the important matter at hand:
"What I want to say is that our detective agency has recently been investigating the assets of gangs in the dock area, and the Sailor Gang is still one of our key targets. However, this crime scene and the warehouse where the incident first occurred were not found to be related to the Sailor Gang at the very beginning."

“Since Jason has only recently escaped from the monastery and should not be familiar with the dock area, how did he find the Sailors’ Gang? The people who died in the past few days were not even the same group, and the distance between the various crime scenes was so far.”

Brother Merlin pondered for a moment, his expression clearly darkening: "He has accomplices."

“Yes.” Wayne nodded. “Someone must have found out where the Sailors were hiding and told him. Considering that there have been incidents involving the Sailors for two consecutive days, the location where these dead are hiding tonight was probably chosen on the spot. This means that someone has been watching the Sailors and told that guy the exact location.”

This thing that's both like a living person and an evil spirit is hard to deal with, but its accomplices shouldn't be this difficult to handle either, right?
That guy can teleport, so catching him by chance is obviously very difficult; randomness plays a huge role.

Why not deal with his accomplices first, and then use them to "bait" the area? If that doesn't work, you can use the sailors as bait for the remaining members.

The fact that the message was delivered so quickly suggests that he and his accomplices likely had a pre-arranged meeting place or a quick way to communicate, and the power might still lie with his accomplices.

However, the key point is that the person hiding behind this clearly has intelligence or influence.

Although Wayne cannot be completely certain of the other party's identity yet, the scope of suspicion is already quite small. The other party has a grudge against the Sailors, but Wayne may not have a grudge against them.

The Sailors' Gang died a worthy death, so this extra task that would offend people should definitely be left to the Cathedral—Wayne seriously doubted that the Cathedral would offer extra compensation this time.

(End of this chapter)