Dean stood behind the observation line three meters away, watching the scene.
He had been here for twenty minutes. Wu Heng hadn't spoken, hadn't even moved. If not for the extremely slow pulsing changes in the light of the four rings, Dean would have thought time had stopped here.
"You think staring at them long enough will make flowers bloom?" Dean finally couldn't hold back any longer.
Wu Heng did not answer immediately.
His gaze remained fixed on the boundary where the energy fields formed by the four rings met. There, spiderweb-like distortions of space flickered with extreme subtlety.
More than ten seconds passed before he spoke, his voice especially clear in the silent room. "The rings aren't weapons."
"I know. They're symbols, authority, blah blah blah." Dean walked two steps closer in exasperation. "Bobby said you'd been here all night."
"Cass is still lying in the medical pod, Crowley ran back to Hell to lick his wounds, and the bodies of those hybrids outside haven't even been dealt with. Yet you're in here staring at rings."
"I'm looking for a path," Wu Heng said.
"What path?"
"A path to imprison Lucifer."
Dean froze for a moment. Then his expression turned grave, and he said no more.
Wu Heng finally raised his hand. Rather than touching the gloves, he traced shapes in the air around them.
Fine streams of grayish-white energy followed his fingertips, like a brush sketching through the air. As he moved, the glow of the four rings began to intensify in sync.
Within Pestilence's green light appeared the phantom image of a rotting swamp. From War's dark red glow came the screeching roar of clashing metal. Famine's withered yellow reflected cracked earth, while Death's dim gray seeped with the chill of grave soil.
Four powers, four symbols,