Outside the workshop, the open ground lay in dead silence.
A cool breeze swept past, stirring up dust and dead leaves with a rustling sound.
John's spot was empty. Only his Colt M1911 pistol lay on the ground, beside several drops of dark-red blood that had not yet fully congealed.
A faint stench of sulfur lingered in the air, along with a deep, unsettling dark energy that made their hearts tremble.
"Dad?!" Dean picked up his father's gun and anxiously shouted into the darkness around them. His voice echoed through the empty factory grounds, but there was no response.
Sam quickly examined the ground, trying to find signs of a struggle or someone being dragged away, but apart from those few drops of blood, there were no other clues.
John Winchester had seemingly vanished into thin air.
"Lohr!" Dean abruptly turned to Wu Heng, his eyes full of urgency and pleading. "Your butler. Can he find my father, like he did at the sewage treatment plant?"
Wu Heng said nothing, merely giving a slight nod.
Behind him, the Reaper Butler silently stepped forward. Its withered figure looked even more bizarre beneath the bleak dusk.
It slowly raised its hands. Gray vapor churned violently within its hollow eye sockets as it attempted to capture, sense, and lock onto the lingering traces of John Winchester's "existence."
Whether it was the aura of life, an omen of death, or fluctuations of the soul, such things could normally be detected.
But this time, the situation was entirely different.
The Reaper Butler's perception had only just spread out like invisible tendrils, attempting to track John through the drops of blood on the ground and the scent he had left behind, when it slammed into an invisible, intangible barrier—tough and cold.
The barrier was formed from