CHAPTER 472: CHAPTER 283_2

This was the customary parlance for reporting, its subtext being that the case was being sealed, and this investigation suspended until similar cases were uncovered.

Truly arbitrary deaths... A cold smile touched Dean’s lips. No clues, huh. Completely fooling amateurs.

Not to mention anything else. The group conducting this human hunt, a deduction made possible through human location-tracking instruments inaccessible to the average person, either belonged to some special department or was composed of local wealthy individuals.

And their choice of local unemployed individuals and vagrants as targets, rather than the vast number of tourists, indicated that this unknown criminal group did not wish to attract media attention. Indirectly, this also confirmed that these people had enough resources to investigate the victims’ social connections. The location of the last disappearance also pointed to this.

Around Las Vegas, there are two sizable national parks frequented by large numbers of local, out-of-state, and foreign visitors throughout the year. Without the cooperation of local park rangers to seal off the area, these places are not ideal hunting grounds.

The FBI agent initially in charge of the investigation hinted at this in the name they gave the case.

Dean speculated that this case might have encountered certain obstructions during the investigation. The FBI agent in charge at the time, resentful yet not daring to risk their own life, deliberately named the case *Human Hunt* as a form of mockery.

However, Dean didn’t quite agree with this name.

Incidents of human hunting have occurred many times in the United States. Such cases frequently occurred on remote interstate highways and along the US-Mexico border. The criminals were often seasoned hunters or psychopaths who had tired of hunting wildlife and had turned to targeting their own kind. This is important: they participate in these hunts to satisfy their own desires, their increasingly high-thrill thresholds, not for self-torture!

Therefore, such criminal groups wouldn’t be foolish enough to engage in close-quarters combat using melee weapons against their prey.

In the *Human Hunt* case, apart from those two unlucky Las Vegas police detectives, all other victims died from wounds inflicted by melee weapons. This essentially dispelled the notion that this was a human-orchestrated hunt.

If Dean wasn’t mistaken, the area where the missing persons died was indeed a sealed-off hunting ground. But the hunters and the prey were one and the same!

A group of people designated an area, implanted tracking devices inside the missing persons, handed them melee weapons, and made false promises, forcing them to fight each other to the death.

The oblivious detectives, thinking it was a simple case of human organ trafficking, barged in with their colleagues, possibly even encountering park rangers, and ultimately died from hidden gunfire.

Therefore... *Human Hunt* doesn’t really fit this case.

Dogfighting, perhaps that’s a more suitable description. An event where people are treated like dogs and forced to fight each other to the death.

This case, more likely than not, is linked to the bosses behind the Las Vegas casinos!

Thinking of this, Dean stroked his chin. These guys, more often than not, had influential connections, knew many tycoons, and kept gang members and shooters in their employ. No wonder this case ultimately went quiet.

Such is the brutal reality. Morals restrain the good, and laws restrain the ordinary... As long as their own interests aren’t touched.

Even Dean wasn’t willing to risk his family facing retaliation by taking on such a case.

The *Human Hunt* case fit well with the Underground Hunting Ground discovered in the previous serial body-dumping case. The national park could still have witnesses. But in the Underground Hunting Ground, once prey entered, they truly couldn’t escape.

Nonetheless, Dean dismissed any connection between the two cases. The *Human Hunt* case was more like a dogfight. Its setting wouldn’t be called a hunting ground; ’fighting pit’ would be more accurate. Therefore, the two cases should only bear a superficial resemblance.

Dean turned his attention to the second archived case: *The Disappearance of Jane*.

「Meanwhile.」

At the FBI headquarters in Washington, in the Illegal Data Monitoring Department.

An inconspicuous, bespectacled woman noticed a pop-up window appear briefly in the bottom right corner of her computer; her languid expression instantly turned serious. She nonchalantly glanced at a colleague beside her engrossed in adult websites, clicked away the pop-up, and her fingers flew across the keyboard, eventually extracting a string of numbers.

She entered the numbers into the system to search.

A series of data surfaced before her:

Dean (Special Consultant)

Case in charge...

Viewing records...

Time...

Looking at Dean’s gentle, smiling face on the screen, the bespectacled woman felt a tinge of regret. She wiped her search history, picked up her coffee mug, and walked to the break room.

「Before long.」

Dean’s information appeared within a high-end villa somewhere in Las Vegas.

The owner of the villa was a young-looking blond man. Upon hearing the alert from his watch, he yawned, stood up, and walked to his desk, pressing down several times on a book.

With clicking sounds, a heavy bookshelf moved aside, revealing a hidden chamber barely wide enough for one person to pass through. The chamber was tiny and narrow, more like a mezzanine formed by two large rooms each sacrificing a portion of their space.

The young man expertly walked over to an illuminated computer and clicked on the incoming information.

As he reviewed it, the computer screen illuminated the blond young man’s handsome face, revealing an interested smile.

He raised his hand, caressing the serpent-shaped earring wrapped around his right earlobe, murmuring to himself, Dean? Sounds somewhat familiar. Should I take care of this unlucky sod named Dean...

The *Human Hunt* case three years ago had been orchestrated by him.

In fact, such activities had not ceased. Many wealthy patrons visiting Las Vegas were aware of this special gambling event. But, having learned from last time’s mistake, those casino owners now selected terminally ill patients as victims, luring them with benefits to participate voluntarily, making this uniquely brutal and exhilarating dogfight gambling even more covert.

The blond young man wasn’t worried about the case being reinvestigated.

But... the timing was off. The organization’s grand hunting feast hadn’t begun yet. These scapegoats, prepared well in advance just in case, couldn’t end up in prison ahead of schedule!

With this thought, the blond young man, after a complex verification process, opened a blood-red website interface and entered Dean’s personal details into the assassination execution list.

「The next moment.」

A large prohibition symbol popped up.

The blond young man furrowed his brow. Execution denied! Could this fellow named Dean also be a member of the Lucifer Organization?

Such situations typically occurred with two types of people. One type was targets who were internal members or relatives of internal members. The other type included those marked as untouchable, such as public officials of a certain rank, personnel from special departments, or exceedingly wealthy individuals with significant resources or connections...

Both lists were constantly updated. Ordinary members had no way of inquiring about them.

Puzzled, the blond young man used his Elder’s authority to send an inquiry request. The rules within the Lucifer Organization were extremely strict. Even though he was one of the thirteen newly promoted Elders, unless he was involved in a game planned by the organization or it concerned his own subordinates, he had no way to actively discover the real-world identities of other members.

「A moment later.」

The blond young man received a reply: This person has been tagged as high-tier prey for the first grand hunt. Elimination order conflicted. Please communicate with Elder Gabriel.

So that’s how it is...

Upon seeing the reply, the blond young man licked his lips.

Gabriel was the veteran Elder responsible for the grand hunt plan within the Lucifer Organization. Although both were Elders of the Lucifer Organization, their statuses weren’t on the same level. Gabriel controlled all the Lucifer Organization’s external operational groups in the United States. He had personally executed several disgraced Elders, making him someone who struck fear into others within the organization!

The blond young man did not want to provoke him.

Forget it. Even if those casino owners’ secret clubs get busted, there are similar arrangements in other states. At most, I’ll lose some game points.

Just as the blond young man decided to forgo killing Dean and was about to leave the hidden compartment.

BUZZ. BUZZ. BUZZ.

A vibration suddenly emanated from his chest.

Surprise flickered in the blond young man’s eyes. He took out a palm-sized crucifix from his pocket, pressed lightly on its gemstone a few times, and then a voice transmitted through bone conduction via the serpent earring on his ear to his brain: "Dean is prey I’ve chosen. I’ll arrange for someone to divert his attention. Don’t touch him!"

"Understood... Elder Gabriel!"