Sam immediately stepped forward to support him, channeling a tiny bit of his own meager strength into him in an attempt to stabilize his consciousness, which was on the verge of collapse.
"Go, hurry... Leave this place. It's too dangerous here!" John panted, trying to push them away.
"We're leaving together!"
Dean spoke with absolute conviction, his gaze as firm as stone.
Over the next stretch of time, the three Winchester men began a grueling "escape" and "battle" within the shattered, dangerous hellscape of John's memories.
They hid behind burning ruins, darted through gaps between rivers of lava, and constantly encountered demons emerging from his memories, fighting them to the death.
Dean and Sam used every demon-hunting technique they had learned in the outside world, even some methods of manipulating energy they had observed from Wu Heng. Though their power was far weaker than in reality, it was enough to deal with most of the memory phantoms.
Throughout it all, they kept talking to John—telling him about the changes in the outside world, about how much they missed their mother, about the experiences the brothers had shared fighting side by side, and about their determination never to give up on finding and saving him.
"Mom is still waiting for you, Dad."
During a brief rest, Sam looked into John's eyes, which were gradually regaining their clarity, and spoke softly.
"You... really have grown up!" John looked at his two sons. Though they were still young, they had already been weathered by hardship, their eyes resolute. Especially when he sensed the powerful, unusual energy radiating from Sam and Dean, it was as if he saw new hope. "I can't do it anymore. Maybe... maybe you really can. You can save your mother."
But the backlash from the memory hell was fierce.