Dean gripped the Cannibal Demon's neck with one hand while holding the man's cell phone in the other. "If you don't want to die in agony, tell me, what's the password to your phone!" he said in a deep voice.

The Cannibal Demon let Dean lift his upper body. Despite the severe pain wracking his body, his face twisted into a mask of狂热, his eyes gleaming with fervor. "What a strong body you have! Your flesh must be very chewy—the finest of the fine."

...

So, even a pervert would find it hard to understand a lunatic's thinking.

Dean knew he couldn't get the phone's secure system password from the Cannibal Demon's mouth. He was about to knock the Cannibal Demon unconscious again when, suddenly, the sound of cars tearing through the darkness and silence came from outside town.

Merck and his team have arrived, Dean realized. He quickly grabbed the Cannibal Demon and disappeared into the darkness.

「...」

Several cars tore through the dead of night, stopping at various points around Estate Number 34. Multiple floodlights illuminated the relatively small estate, making it as bright as day. This kind of miniature estate, aside from a small garden, wasn't much different from an ordinary multi-story detached house. This gave the police a more direct and brutal option for their operation.

Officer Hawk, who was bald, scanned Estate Number 34 with a thermal imager and frowned. "Agent Merck, the main house is showing wave-like heat signatures. Someone must have lit the fireplace inside," he reported. "At least there's no activity in the immediate surroundings!"

Merck, donning night-vision goggles, waved to the others. "Stick to the plan. If it comes down to it, shoot to kill!"

Hawk nodded and whispered something to the officers behind him. Over ten patrol officers, carrying their equipment, formed groups of three under Hawk's lead. One officer with a riot shield took the lead in each group. Behind him, one carried a long rifle that resembled a shotgun, and another held a pistol. Shielded, they approached the buildings within Estate Number 34 slowly and deliberately. Under the cover of the special riot shields, even if the Cannibal Demon were to awaken and try to resist with a gun, he would be powerless. He could only watch as the officers stormed the house and apprehended him.

As they drew closer and closer, suddenly—

CRASH!

It was the sound of breaking glass.

Then, BANG! BANG! BANG!

The person inside the house had fired first!

Hawk was the most alert. Sheltering behind his riot shield without hesitation, he shouted to his men, "That bastard is right by the window! Everyone, suppressing fire! Charge!"

For a moment, long rifles and handguns roared, shattering the small town's tranquil night.

Once the gunfire ceased, an officer behind Hawk aimed a shotgun at the main door and fired. Wood splinters flew everywhere. Hawk kicked down the broken door, now off its lock. Shield first, he rushed into the living room. He found it covered in white cloths and riddled with bullet holes. Beneath the window, a twitching figure was spitting blood while clutching a handgun. The figure raised it toward the entrance, as if seeking help, yet seemingly still stubbornly wanting to resist with gunfire!

Hawk signaled his companion. The muscular man who had previously breached the door reloaded his gun. With a fierce smile, he extended the barrel from behind the riot shield and pulled the trigger, aiming at the figure.

Those FBI jerks, making us risk our lives to assist them. And they wanted to capture this psycho alive to show off how great they are? In their dreams!

BANG! The shot reverberated.

Hundreds of steel pellets erupted, spraying an area of one to two meters and completely engulfing the struggling figure on the ground.

When Merck and his team finally entered the house, the unfortunate Cannibal Demon had become an immobile mass of mangled flesh. He was far beyond dead; even identifying the body had become difficult.

"Fuck!" Merck clenched his handgun, ready to demand why Hawk and his men hadn't followed the plan and used tranquilizer rounds.

But Hawk, as if anticipating their reaction, patted his riot shield. "Sorry, this guy was determined to shoot, even if it cost him his life. If it weren't for the shields, we would've had casualties. There was no chance of taking him alive."

With Hawk having said that, what could Merck do? If he dared utter another word, this group might ensure he or one of his companions became the operation's only casualties. Such things had happened before.

Left with no other choice, Merck and his young partner began to search the bullet-riddled body of the Cannibal Demon. He finally breathed a sigh of relief when he found and opened the thick ledger. The deceased's appearance and the items on his person were enough to prove that this was the Cannibal Demon they had been chasing across states.

The case was closed.

「...」

While Merck and his group were dealing with the body, Dean was already on his way back to the city. He hadn't tampered with any of the Cannibal Demon's belongings, except for the cell phone. Without the password, the encrypted phone was practically a useless brick under normal circumstances. Moreover, it could easily become a tracking tool for the 'Lucifer Gaming Organization'.

But Dean had Little Mike. And Little Mike also had the means for remote intrusion.

After Dean used the Cannibal Demon's phone to open a text message and made a call using the phone's original SIM card, Little Mike began attempting to remotely breach the phone's secure interface. After all, this wasn't the era of smartphones. For a hacking expert, such hidden interfaces weren't as unassailable as one might imagine.

Half an hour later, just as Dean was about to enter downtown Los Angeles, Little Mike called.

"Dean, the password is ※1001#," Little Mike said. "After entering it, the hidden phone interface will appear, then display the communication page. Also, I must remind you, this type of phone is essentially a natural tracking device. If you want to keep it, you need to store it in a sealed lead box."

Hearing this, Dean immediately thought of a key point. "Buddy, can you reverse engineer the phone's location transmission to invade their system and get the locations of all their other phones of this type?"

In that case, wouldn't I be able to get the locations of most of the 'Lucifer Gaming Organization's internal members at once?

Little Mike immediately shot down Dean's flash of inspiration. "Can't be done. Otherwise, this organization would've been wiped out long ago by those phishers on the dark web."

"Alright, good night."

Dean hung up. He pulled the car over, looking at the sparkling coastal waters beside the road. He picked up the Cannibal Demon's cell phone and entered '※1001#' on the keypad.

The next moment, the rudimentary interface slid to the right like a curtain, revealing a grim, black-and-red operating interface before Dean. He clicked on the communications button. This time, a complete communication record was finally visible.

Unlike normal cell phone chats, this record only had codenames. Clicking on them revealed no actual phone numbers. Beyond that, it was unclear whether the Cannibal Demon had cleared the records himself or if the interface's records refreshed at set intervals. The entire communication log only had the entry for 'Widow' preserved.

"Widow?"

Suddenly, the image of a mature, beautiful Japanese woman surfaced in Dean's mind. It couldn't be this clichéd...

He took a deep breath and dialed the codename.

After a few seconds, a raspy, mechanical voice came from the other end, "Demon, how did things go?"

A mechanical voice!

Dean frowned and said tentatively, "Widow, the cherry blossoms in your hometown have bloomed!"

The other end fell into a dead silence, then the call was disconnected.

But Dean already knew the answer.

I didn't expect her to be a member of the 'Lucifer Gaming Organization' too! It looks like her rank isn't low; she's probably a specialist responsible for liaising with the Cannibal Demon...

Dean wiped away any traces left on the phone. He started a small fire, added some gasoline, and tossed the phone into it.

Kill that tempting little woman, he thought. Then this whole affair will finally be over!

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