It's another night. But this time, a few small figures were flickering through the dead silent town. The agents possessing the puppet bodies skillfully slid down the drainage pipes and directly jumped onto the second-floor balcony.
This is Derby's house. After some investigation, the agent found the place where this former priest lived. He knew there would definitely be some clues here. While the evil spirit was too occupied, he had to hurry over to look around.
The body was small and nimble, but the problem was it was a bit too small, slow in speed, and it was hard to walk. The agent exerted a lot of effort to climb onto the desk, and then he discovered there were quite a few books in this guy's house.
It should be known that this heresy opposed modern education, and except for the scriptures, nothing else was allowed to be read. Not newspapers, not magazines, and not even leaflets were allowed to appear. Yet, this priest's house hid quite a few books.
You couldn't even say they were hidden. They were just openly placed on the desk. Moreover, many of the books showed signs of being read. The agent did a simple check and found they were mainly political and economic books. This seemed even stranger.
In America, generally, non-professionals wouldn't read specialized books because they contain too many technical terms, making it hard to fully understand. Moreover, the agent noticed that although these books showed signs of being read, the reading basically stopped at the beginning. In other words, whoever started reading them didn't get through many pages before giving up, probably finding it too hard to continue.
Then he moved near the desk drawers. The agent jumped in and found a set of very expensive pens inside. This was understandable, considering his high status in the church, it's normal to have money. However, it was odd to have such an expensive item as a pen.
Giving pens as gifts is common, but because it's so common, it stands out as unusual in this sinister town. For a sect with no school and that opposes any form of education, who would give pens as gifts?
He came to the second drawer. Upon opening it, the agent found quite a few letters. He opened one and saw that it said: "Dear Derby, I have good news to tell you, your father will soon be assigned to Utah State Council..."
The agent's eyes widened immediately. Goodness, Derby actually had significant connections, being the son of a councilor. He riffled through a few more letters. The dates went further back, revealing more information.
It turned out this guy was the illegitimate son of a former city councilor, now a state councilor. The exact details were complicated, but it seemed the town mayor had sent a village girl to the councilor as a bribe, resulting in an accidental pregnancy and eventually giving birth to Derby.
And it seemed because this councilor had no other offspring, Derby was quite valued. This economical father of his would even send him books and pens. Moreover, all the town's top brass knew about Derby's background and nobody dared to trouble him.
These letters did not contain any key information. The agent knew there had to be more. After searching the study without finding anything significant, he moved to the bedroom and discovered another letter under the pillow.
"Dear son, before my transfer, there is one crucial task that must be completed. That former circus performer Berg got close to Councillor Hose's daughter, and that foolish girl revealed the discharge issue to him, now he is suspicious. I can't let this become a stain on my tenure. You need to find a way to protect our family. I know how much your relationship with him has deteriorated, without us, he would make your life difficult."
Upon reading this, the agent understood that the father-son relationship was fragile at best. But this clue divulged a crucial truth, confirming their previous assumption was correct—Old Berg indeed knew about the water pollution issue.
His looks did him favors, despite his age, he was still a handsome old man. Along with his likable personality shown in memories, admirers were inevitable. A councilor's daughter divulged these matters to him.
Derby had a bad relationship with Old Berg for some reasons. The agent guessed Derby, relying on his father, disregarded Old Berg's sect rules. As a priest, Derby should have been a model, but he didn't lead by example. From the perspective of the sect-important Old Berg, Derby was a thorn that must be removed.
Now that Old Berg knew those councilor bastards were poisoning the town, he would likely start with Derby. The letter appeared to be a threat but was actually a warning because Derby had no other choice—if he didn't kill Old Berg, Old Berg would kill him.
It seemed Derby won the confrontation between the two. But it was odd since Old Berg practiced black magic and should have defeated Derby. However, from Peter's description, Old Berg hadn't mastered black magic, and being an old man, losing to the younger Derby made sense.
But more likely, the town mayor and Derby were in cahoots. Although Old Berg was the sect leader, the mayor had people and guns. Old Berg couldn't fight many with two fists.
After Derby dealt with Old Berg, he found out about his black magic studies. It was possible Old Berg, in a desperate counterattack, chose to expose his black magic practice to eliminate Derby. Anyway, Derby inherited Old Berg's black magic heritage and began dealing with evil magic tools.
However, according to Peter, the array in the bunker was set up by Old Berg. It now seemed to be a last resort. Old Berg might have wanted to transform his life form with that thing to seek revenge. But unfortunately, he was killed before succeeding, ultimately benefiting Derby.
The agent leaned towards the belief that Derby knew the array's purpose. He deliberately tricked another priest, Famino, into being sacrificed, thus transforming himself into an evil spirit.
However, two mysteries remained unsolved. That is, why did Binger and others in the town enter a mental world, and why did they gain possession abilities like evil spirits?
The agent guessed this probably wasn't Derby's doing. While Derby seemed to have become an evil spirit ruling the town, he obviously couldn't entirely control the psychic battlefield, otherwise unexpected occurrences wouldn't arise.
More importantly, the agent trusted the judgment of Hunting. Hunting said that the thing couldn't really be considered human but rather a concept. Derby, as an evil spirit, was overly personified.
Primarily, the agent felt Derby as an evil spirit was too weak, not worth Hunting's serious attention. There must be something else.
With that thought, the agent decided to head to the church basement. The ultimate secret of the town might be hidden there. But the trouble was, even though it's been a while, Derby might still have figured out how to counter the seal.
They were now puppets, nearly devoid of physical combat power, making resolving the evil spirit difficult. They could only rely on the few still alive in reality.
The agent's speculation was correct. As the curse on the arm spread to the chest, two forces clashed, causing the deeply embedded nail in the chest to gradually lose effect.
The evil spirit returned to Kent's body but couldn't find it, so he could only go back to manipulate the abandoned corpse of Aunt Cain. After all, without a human's body and with puppets snatched away, he barely had a usable body left.
The evil spirit knew well that the situation had developed to a point where picking them off one by one or letting them kill each other was impossible. He had to think of another way. Instead of returning to the psychic battlefield, the evil spirit used Aunt Cain's body to head to the church.
On the road, he looked up at the sky. At dusk, the sky was overcast. If nothing unexpected happened, tonight would be a moonless night.
Bruce and the others were also on their way to the church. After Ben informed them about a mysterious object underneath the church, they believed there might be a secret hidden within and needed to investigate.
Just as they passed by Aunt Cain's house, they saw Linda's figure flashed past behind the house.
Bruce instinctively felt something was off. He walked over, seeing Linda fiddling with the car they drove over.
"Linda, where are you going?!" Bruce asked.
Linda sat in the driver's seat and smiled at the puppet she was possessing. He said, "I can't drive, can you teach me?"
"I..."
"Let me teach you." Kate stepped forward, then turned to the other companions and said, "You go ahead, I'll catch up."
Bruce had no choice but to lead the others away. Linda picked up the puppet Kate was possessing from the ground and sat back in the driver's seat. She still seemed somewhat clumsy, yet looked excited.
"Here are the car keys, you need to start the ignition first. Then prepare to shift gears, and then step on the gas..."
Linda took a few deep breaths, appearing very nervous. But then she suddenly turned to Kate and said, "Aren't you going to ask where I am going?"
"That's your freedom," Kate said, "If you don't have anywhere to go, then head to New York, you're my cousin, you can stay at my place."
Linda gave her a bright smile.
The group arrived at the church entrance, encountering the agent. A few small puppets looked at each other, feeling somewhat helpless.
"I don't think we can beat the evil spirit like this." Bruce said.
"His body isn't that healthy either." Peter said, "A dried corpse might not be as tough as a puppet. Besides, I've made some little tools that can at least temporarily knock him down."
"If it doesn't work, seal it up again." The agent said, "Then figure out how to deal with it slowly."
"Compared to that, I think the object beneath the church is more troublesome." Ben said, "I have a bad feeling."
Ben's premonition quickly came true. Because this time when they went down under the church, instead of the previous small rooms, there was a very spacious dark room.
Faint music came from deep within the darkness. Bruce listened intently, then froze. He said, "How does this sound like...rock music???"
The music from the darkness was not that eerie and ethereal type they imagined but was rather intense rock music.
They moved closer towards the sound of the music and smelled a rich aroma. The agent gently twitched his nose and said, "Coffee."
Then moving a little closer, they finally reached the light. They saw a figure sitting at a table, listening to rock music from the radio, enjoying coffee, leisurely flipping through magazines on the table.
Under the dim light appeared a pale face. When he lifted his eyes, a pair of somewhat dazed gray eyes looked over. The group collectively took two steps back.
"With the lighting here, I thought you were the behind-the-scenes manipulator." The agent said irritably, "What are you doing here?"
"Of course, waiting for someone." Hunting said, "We work together. You guys go deal with the fool who is hurrying over, leave the real behind-the-scenes manipulator to me."
"Who is the real behind-the-scenes manipulator?"
Hunting just quietly sipped his tea, not continuing to speak.
At the same time, a motorcycle stopped at the entrance of the Siv City police station. A towering figure approached the police station. Kent looked around somewhat cautiously.
"Hello, is there anything I can help with?" a police officer asked.
"I want to see the sheriff." Kent said, "I have something to give him. Could you please ask him to come out?"