Dean and the others nodded with equally grave expressions, indicating that they understood.
Having said that, Wu Heng did not linger. His figure faded into the gradually dissipating curtain of rain, as mysterious as when he had arrived.
Dean and Sam stood at the entrance to the devastated town, looking at the wounded scattered across the ground and the belated police sirens continuously sounding in the distance, while turning over the information Wu Heng had left behind.
Though the two still felt heavy-hearted, they at least had a direction now.
Deep within Morik Manor, inside a laboratory completely sealed off, its walls covered in energy-absorbing metal and anti-supernatural incantations.
The air was stagnant, broken only by the faint hum of flowing energy.
The ring seized from War hovered at the center of a transparent analyzer composed of complex force fields.
The ring itself had an ancient design. Its dark metal seemed steeped in the blood and fire of countless ages, while within the dark-red gemstone at its center, phantom images of a miniature battlefield seemed to eternally replay charges and slaughter.
As if caught in a cycle.
Wu Heng stood silently before the instrument, his gaze profound. His consciousness had completely synchronized with the Puppet Wraith and the laboratory's top-tier analytical equipment.
Countless invisible detection waves, demonic-energy scans, power dissections, and trait observations—he was like a precise scalpel, cutting into this seemingly simple creation, which in truth contained the source concept of "war," from every dimension.
The analysis results streamed through his consciousness like a waterfall of data.
"As expected. It isn't a complete manifestation of a trait," Wu Heng murmured.
The scans showed that the ring did indeed contain an extraordinarily pure trait related to conflict, the desire for battle, and collective confrontation.
Yet this trait was like an