The passage walls, which had seemed to be torn apart, were smoothed by an invisible hand, becoming sleek and solid, radiating a translucent, stable dark-red sheen.
The unsettling sense of spatial distortion vanished, replaced by the solid, dependable feeling of a "door."
The passage's opening had even been expanded slightly.
Wu Heng's steady voice came through the communicator, this time as a broadcast to everyone.
"The passage has been stabilized. Using the Purgatory Lord's core as a secondary anchor, it has formed a stable circuit with the guild anchor. The passage can remain open or closed indefinitely. Dean, Sam, begin the final evacuation procedure."
"Wounded first, then combat personnel, and you two last. The final coordinates of the Tracker Squad have been updated. There are faint life signals. Take an elite team to meet them. Go quickly and return quickly."
Sam and Dean exchanged a glance.
"I'll go," Sam said immediately. "In your condition, you'd only be a burden."
Dean wanted to argue, but the agony coursing through his body only made him bare his teeth. "...Be careful. Even if you have to drag them back, bring all fifty of those boys home."
Sam nodded and swiftly assembled a thirty-man elite squad, all of them the most skilled and best-equipped fighters.
Benny silently stepped up beside him, his intentions obvious.
"Can you manage? Are your injuries healed?"
"They are. There's just some residual damage around the wounds, but it won't affect combat." Benny shook his bandaged left arm, while his right hand already gripped a specially made long-barreled pistol.
Sam said no more.
The thirty-one of them shot through a temporarily opened breach in the defensive line like arrows, charging northwest toward those final unknown coordinates.
The next hour was an orderly yet tense evacuation.
The wounded were carried into