Chapter Summaries

Sam and Bai Haorui confronted the Trickster at the Mystery Spot, and the Trickster restored Dean to life while warning that his hell contract remained. Later, Bela lured the Winchesters and Bai Haorui into an FBI arrest, and Henriksen prepared to transfer them under heavy guard.

• Sam pursued forbidden summoning magic and gathered the sacred artifacts to sacrifice himself for Dean, while Bai Haorui searched for him and grew stronger through battles.
• Bai Haorui and Sam confronted the Trickster at the Mystery Spot, and their refusal to give up persuaded him to restore Dean while temporarily sealing the contract's activation.
• The Trickster warned that Dean's hell debt would eventually have to be paid, and Dean, Sam, and Bai Haorui left together to visit Bobby.
• At Bela Talbot's empty apartment, Bai Haorui sensed a powerful demon's traces, and Bela called Dean to taunt him and reveal that she had summoned the FBI.
• Victor Henriksen's agents arrested Dean, Sam, and Bai Haorui, then brought them to Monument, Colorado, where Henriksen ordered the station cleared and arranged a helicopter transfer.

Bai Haorui, Dean, and Sam survived a demonic takeover of the police station, forcing Henriksen to accept that demons were real and join them. As they prepared to defend the station, Ruby arrived and warned that Lilith had targeted Sam for death.

• Bai Haorui blocked a possessed Steven Groves's shot at Dean, then helped Sam exorcise Groves, who died after the demon left his body.
• Demons attacked the police station, killing Reidy and Melvin; Bai Haorui and the Winchester brothers saved Henriksen from possession, and Henriksen agreed to stand with them.
• Sam, Dean, Bai Haorui, Henriksen, and Phil fortified the station with Devil's Traps, salt, and Pure Yang True Fire wards while Bai Haorui scouted more than fifty possessed townspeople surrounding them.
• Dean and Bai Haorui retrieved demon-hunting supplies from the Impala, and Bai Haorui enchanted the salt rounds before they returned to the station.
• Ruby arrived at the station and told Dean that Lilith, hell's new leader, wanted Sam dead because he might be able to stand against her.

Dean and Sam rejected Ruby’s plan to sacrifice Nancy and helped Bai Haorui drive back the demons with an exorcism broadcast, but Lilith later destroyed the police station and killed Henriksen, Nancy, and Phil. After learning of the deaths, the three set out to retrieve the Colt and confront Lilith.

• Ruby proposed a spell requiring a willing virgin’s heart, but Dean and Sam refused and planned to trap the demons and exorcise them through the station’s PA system.
• Bai Haorui, Dean, and Sam fought off more than fifty possessed residents while Phil and Nancy sealed exits and Henriksen guarded the broadcast room.
• A second wave of over a hundred demons attacked, and Sam played the recorded exorcism, driving the demons out and saving their human hosts.
• Henriksen reported that Dean, Sam, and Bai Haorui had died in a helicopter explosion so they could escape, but Lilith arrived at the station and killed Henriksen, Nancy, and Phil in an explosion.
• At a motel, Ruby told the three that Lilith had killed everyone at the station, and Dean decided they would retrieve the Colt, find Lilith, and stop her.

Dean, Sam, and Bai Haorui joined the Ghostfacers at Morton House, where Freeman Daggett’s earthbound spirit trapped visitors and repeated the deaths of stolen corpses. After Corbett’s confession was answered, his ghost helped destroy Daggett, and the Winchesters left after Bobby found a lead on Lilith.

• Ed led the Ghostfacers into Morton House to investigate the disappearances that occurred every leap year, while Dean, Sam, and Bai Haorui arrived to warn them of the danger.
• Sam identified the death echoes and discovered that Freeman Daggett had stolen hospital corpses and hidden them in a basement bomb shelter, but Daggett captured Sam and Corbett.
• Dean and Bai Haorui broke into the shelter and fought Daggett while Corbett’s death echo haunted the Ghostfacers; Ed confessed that he loved Corbett, restoring the ghost’s clarity and strength.
• Corbett’s ghost restrained Daggett as Bai Haorui bound him with true-fire vines and Dean and Sam used holy oil and salt to destroy him.
• The survivors escaped Morton House, Dean erased the Ghostfacers’ recordings with a hidden electromagnet, and Bai Haorui told Dean and Sam that Bobby had found a lead on Lilith.

Dean, Sam, and Bai Haorui investigated a Crocotta that used phone lines to exploit grieving people and drive them to suicide. After Dean narrowly escaped the creature’s trap, the three killed it, and Dean reconciled with Sam as they continued searching for a way to break his Hell contract.

• Bobby sent Dean, Sam, and Bai Haorui to investigate three suicides in Milan, where each victim had received an untraceable call marked “SHA33.”
• At Ben Waters’s and Martha Cole’s homes, the investigators found that the calls preyed on the victims’ grief, and Bai Haorui identified clinging yin baleful energy connected to their landline telephones.
• Sam found records linking the calls to the Milan phone company’s switch, while Bai Haorui suspected manager Clark Adams and marked the equipment to track its energy.
• The Crocotta called Dean using John Winchester’s voice and lured him alone to the Stubbs house, but Dean recognized the deception and stopped Mike Stubbs from attacking him.
• Bai Haorui confronted Clark, who revealed himself as the Crocotta; Dean, Sam, and Bai Haorui joined forces to destroy it with true fire, holy water, salt, and a telephone wire.
• Dean apologized to Sam for doubting him, and Sam promised to keep seeking a way to break Dean’s contract as Bai Haorui gave Dean Clear Heart Talismans.

Dean, Sam, and Bai Haorui exorcised a demon that refused to reveal who held Dean’s contract, leaving them with only three weeks to find another lead. They investigated Jules’s murder in Erie City and discovered his liver had been surgically removed, convincing Sam that Benton—and a possible path to the Immortality Technique—was nearby.

• Jules was abducted from a parking lot, suffered a surgical wound that removed his liver, and staggered into an emergency room before collapsing.
• Dean, Sam, and Bai Haorui exorcised a demon that taunted Dean about his contract but revealed no useful name; Dean said only three weeks remained.
• Sam used a police impersonation to learn that bloody fingerprints on the victim belonged to someone who died in 1981, while Bai Haorui sensed a strange life-draining aura near the crime scene in Erie City.
• Dean, Sam, and Bai Haorui questioned the coroner, who explained that Jules’s liver had been removed with a precise surgical incision rather than torn out.
• Sam recognized the surgical work as Benton’s and concluded that the Erie City case could lead to the Immortality Technique.

Bai Haorui, Dean, and Sam traced the organ thefts to Dr. Benton, whose experiments with organ replacement might offer Sam a way to keep Dean alive. When Bobby reported that Bela was in Vermont, Dean insisted on pursuing her, but Sam refused to leave Benton’s case, and the brothers faced off over Dean’s fate.

• Bai Haorui found a hospitalized kidney-theft victim, and the victim’s account led Sam and Dean to the Pine Grove Motel.
• Sam connected the surgical clues to Dr. Benton, while Bai Haorui identified Benton’s Yin-Gathering Array and located his cabin in the woods.
• Dr. Benton operated on a bound jogger at his cabin as Bai Haorui confirmed the hideout and marked it on the brothers’ map.
• Bobby told Dean that Bela, using the name Mina Chandler, was in Canaan City, Vermont, and Dean prepared to go after her.
• Sam revealed that he had hoped Benton’s immortality could save Dean, and he refused to leave the case when Dean ordered him to come along.

Dean learned that Bela had made a demon deal to save herself and confronted her at the Canaan Hotel, while Sam and Bai Haorui located Benton's laboratory and prepared to search for his immortality formula. The chapter left Dean and Bela arguing over their different reasons for making deals, as Sam and Bai Haorui headed toward Benton’s laboratory.

• Dean left Sam to pursue Bela, while Bai Haorui gave Sam talismans and promised to protect him as they investigated Benton.
• Dean persuaded Rufus to reveal Bela’s location and learned that Bela, whose real name was Abigail Cain, had traded her parents’ lives for ten years and was trying to escape her contract.
• Bai Haorui deciphered Benton’s encrypted records and warned Sam that the Immortality Technique stole victims’ souls and life essence.
• Sam insisted on finding the formula to save Dean, and Bai Haorui agreed to accompany him while cautioning him not to abandon his principles.
• Dean found Bela at the Canaan Hotel, confronted her about the stolen Colt, and told her he knew about her demon deal.
• Bela rejected Dean’s comparison between them, calling herself a selfish murderer while Dean said they were both waiting to die.

Dean learned that Lilith held his contract and that Bela had sold the Colt to a red-eyed demon, then escaped the hotel where Bela had locked him in. At Benton’s cabin, Sam and Bai Haorui captured Benton and rescued a jogger, while Sam kept the notebook and elixir; Dean drove toward Erie City to reunite with them.

• Bela told Dean that Lilith held his contract and admitted she had sold the Colt to a red-eyed demon, then locked him inside the hotel room.
• Bai Haorui contained Benton’s cabin with a Spirit-Locking Array while Sam entered and found Benton’s Immortality Experiment Records and elixir.
• Benton returned and caught Sam hiding, but Bai Haorui broke into the cabin and helped Sam corner him.
• Benton tried to escape and attacked Sam, but Bai Haorui burned Benton’s wrist, allowing Sam to subdue and handcuff him.
• Bai Haorui freed the captive jogger and told Sam to destroy Benton’s elixir, while Sam hesitated over the notebook he had found.
• Dean broke out of the hotel room, told Bobby that Lilith held his contract, and drove toward Erie City after Bobby urged him to reunite with Sam and Bai Haorui.

After Sam admitted he had kept Benton’s immortality formula to save Dean, Dean destroyed it, insisting he would rather die than survive by killing people. Bela then called as Hellhounds came for her, revealed where she had hidden the Colt, and died; Dean and the others were left with a possible way to fight Lilith and only three weeks before his contract came due.

• Bai Haorui confronted Sam about keeping Benton’s notebook and potions, warning that the spell would turn Dean into an organ-stealing monster.
• Dean found the formula and potions in the motel room, argued with Sam, and flushed them away despite Sam’s pleas.
• Dean comforted Sam after destroying the formula, while Bai Haorui sensed Hellhounds approaching.
• Bela called Dean as Hellhounds attacked her, explained that she had made her deal to escape her abusive parents, and admitted Lilith had pressured her to steal the Colt.
• Bela revealed that she had hidden the Colt and bullets in a storage locker behind Rufus’s cabin, then died as the Hellhounds reached her.
• Sam and Bai Haorui urged Dean to use the Colt and fight Lilith, while Dean faced the tightening three-week deadline with renewed acceptance.

With Dean’s hell contract nearing its deadline, Sam and Bai Haorui tracked Lilith and argued over whether to trust Ruby for help. Ruby urged Sam to awaken his demonic powers to kill Lilith, but Bai Haorui warned that she was targeting Sam; Dean then revealed he had secretly returned and aimed a shotgun at Ruby.

• Dean awoke from a nightmare as the contract’s effects worsened, and Sam said Bobby had found a way to track Lilith.
• Bobby used Dean’s blood to locate Lilith in New Harmony, Indiana, and Sam proposed contacting Ruby for her demon-killing knife.
• Dean objected to Sam summoning Ruby, but Bai Haorui said he would protect Sam and Dean drove away from Bobby’s workshop.
• Sam summoned Ruby at the motel, where she claimed Lilith was vulnerable and told Sam his dormant powers could kill her and save Dean.
• Bai Haorui warned Sam that Ruby wanted to awaken his demonic power, and Dean emerged from the bathroom aiming a loaded shotgun at her.

Dean and Bai Haorui stopped Sam from accepting Ruby’s demonic plan, then the group headed to New Harmony to confront Lilith. They discovered the town was packed with demons and found Lilith occupying a bloodstained little girl inside the Fremont house.

• Dean fought Ruby and trapped her in a Devil’s Trap reinforced by Bai Haorui’s true fire, then left with Sam and the demon-killing knife.
• Dean persuaded Sam to stop making sacrifices for each other and to face Lilith together as hunters.
• Bai Haorui revealed that Lilith had covered New Harmony with demonic energy, while Bobby joined the group and warned that Dean had only hours before his soul went to Hell.
• Dean saw through a possessed police officer’s disguise and killed the demon, then fled when Bai Haorui sensed more demons approaching.
• The group reached New Harmony and watched the Fremont house, where Lilith sat in a bloodstained little girl’s body as the Fremont family trembled nearby.

Bai Haorui and the Winchesters confronted Lilith’s trap, with Bai Haorui staying behind to hold off the demons while Dean, Sam, and Bobby entered the house to reach Lilith before midnight. Bai Haorui fought through waves of demons in the sealed street and was wounded, but continued battling them.

• The little girl killed Pat after discovering he had sought help from Mr. Wehplin, while Mr. and Mrs. Fremont were forced to celebrate her birthday.
• Bai Haorui detected at least a hundred of Lilith’s demons surrounding the house and told Dean, Sam, and Bobby to find Lilith while he held off the attackers.
• Bobby activated the holy-water sprinklers, exposing the disguised demons, and Dean, Sam, and Bobby slipped into the house through the side entrance.
• Bai Haorui sealed the street with a Five Elements Demon-Locking Formation and attacked the demons with talismans, his peachwood sword, and violet flames.
• Bai Haorui killed wave after wave of demons, but one demon slashed his back and forced demonic energy into his wound before he burned it away and kept fighting.

Bai Haorui fought through Lilith’s demon army and wounded her, but Dean’s contract expired and a hellhound dragged him to Hell. Sam’s demonic power awakened and drove Lilith away, while Bai Haorui vowed to enter Hell and bring Dean back.

• Bai Haorui held the street against the demons while Dean, Sam, and Bobby searched the house for Lilith.
• The hunters found Ruby bound in the study, and she urged Sam to use his demonic power as Dean’s contract neared its deadline.
• At midnight, Lilith revealed she had possessed Ruby and pinned Dean, Sam, and Bobby with her power.
• Bai Haorui broke through the demon army, entered the house, and pierced Lilith with his last spear of Pure Yang True Fire.
• The hellhound dragged Dean away as Sam’s demonic power awakened, forcing the wounded Lilith to flee.
• Bai Haorui soothed Sam’s unstable power and vowed to rescue Dean from Hell, where Dean screamed Sam’s name in torment.

Four months after Dean died, he escaped Hell and returned to the living, then reunited with Bobby and learned that Sam had disappeared after apparently making a costly deal to bring him back. Dean and Bobby tracked Sam to a motel in Pontiac, where a scantily dressed woman opened the door and asked where the stuff was.

• Dean crawled out of his grave four months after his death, found a red handprint branded on his arm, and escaped an attack by an angel’s true voice at a gas station.
• Dean reached Bobby by phone, drove to his house, and convinced Bobby that he was truly alive.
• Bobby told Dean that Haorui had suffered destroyed meridians while fighting Lilith and had spent the past four months healing in seclusion; Dean spoke to him through the basement door.
• Dean learned that Sam had left after searching for ways to revive him, and he concluded Sam had made a deal at a great personal cost.
• Dean tracked Sam’s phone to Pontiac, Illinois, and drove there with Bobby.
• Dean and Bobby knocked on room 207, where a young woman answered the door and asked where the stuff was.

Dean reunited with Sam and Bobby after escaping Hell, but concealed that he had endured thirty years of torture. Their search for the force that resurrected Dean led Pamela Barnes to glimpse Castiel’s true form, while Bai Haorui recognized the angel and realized Heaven was preparing the Apocalypse.

• Dean reunited with Sam, who admitted he had tried and failed to save him; Bobby and Dean concluded that an unknown force had pulled Dean out of Hell.
• Sam returned Dean’s amulet, and Dean privately hid the truth about his thirty years of torture in Hell.
• Dean learned that Lilith’s power had failed to hurt Sam and suspected Sam was hiding something about Ruby.
• Dean, Sam, and Bobby visited Pamela Barnes to identify the force behind Dean’s return, but her attempt to summon its name burned her eyes blind.
• When Pamela saw Castiel’s true form, Bai Haorui sensed the angel’s sacred presence, suffered a violent backlash, and realized Heaven was setting the Apocalypse in motion.

Dean and Sam confronted demons while seeking answers about Dean’s return from Hell, then summoned Castiel and learned that he was an angel acting on God’s command. Bai Haorui completed his recovery and emerged from seclusion, while Olivia Lowry was attacked by two ghosts.

• Dean and Sam encountered demons posing as restaurant workers, and Dean taunted their leader until he and Sam left.
• Sam returned to the restaurant alone, fought the blind waitress demon, and killed her with his powers after she warned that everyone would die.
• Dean and Bobby summoned Castiel, who overpowered them and told Dean that he was an angel sent to bring him back from Hell because God had work for him.
• Bai Haorui completed the fifth level of his cultivation, recovered from his injuries, and left his basement after four months in seclusion.
• Olivia Lowry received Bobby’s message asking for help, then was seized by a female ghost after salt and a shotgun failed to stop the ghosts haunting her home.

Bai Haorui detected Hell-tainted black magic as Dean, Sam, and Bobby investigated angels and a growing threat to hunters. After they found several hunters murdered by powerful vengeful spirits, they headed back to Bobby’s place to regroup.

• Bai Haorui sensed Hell’s black magic in the west, while Dean and Sam argued over whether an angel had rescued Dean from Hell.
• Bobby found lore claiming only an angel could pull a soul from Hell, and Dean reluctantly agreed to investigate angels while remaining suspicious of Heaven’s motives.
• Sam met Ruby, who warned him that angels would kill demons without mercy, while he secretly resolved to keep his demon blood use from Dean.
• Bobby, Dean, Sam, and Bai Haorui found Olivia Lowry dead and learned that Hell’s black magic had bound and magnified the resentment of the spirit that killed her.
• Bobby discovered that other hunters were missing, and the group found Jed, Carl, and R.C. dead in similar attacks by spirits that ignored salt and iron.
• Dean and Bobby compared the massacre scenes by phone, and Bobby ordered Dean and Sam back to his place to regroup.

Bai Haorui connected the hunters’ deaths to black magic that turned their regrets into vengeful spirits, and he helped Sam rescue Bobby from the ghosts of two girls. Dean then encountered Meg Masters, whose resentment over her possession and death led her to blame him for her and her sister’s deaths.

• Bai Haorui told Bobby that the curse targeted hunters’ guilt over people they had failed to save, and Bobby identified Olivia’s shapeshifter case as a likely source of her vengeful spirit.
• Henriksen’s ghost attacked Sam at a gas station, blamed him for the deaths at the police station, and vanished when Dean fired salt rounds empowered by Bai Haorui’s true fire.
• Two ghost girls attacked Bobby at his home, but Bai Haorui drove them off with true fire while Sam pried open the car door and helped free Bobby.
• Bobby explained that the girls had drowned in a case he had worked, and Bai Haorui recognized the black-magic brands on them as the same kind found on Olivia’s spirit.
• Meg Masters confronted Dean, recounted how a demon’s possession had ruined her life and led to her sister’s suicide, and attacked him while blaming him for both deaths.

Dean, Sam, Bobby, and Bai Haorui discovered that Lilith had raised vengeful ghosts to break a seal of the Apocalypse and prepared a counterspell. While gathering supplies, Sam and Dean faced ghosts who confronted them with their guilt and the suffering of people they had failed to save.

• Dean dispersed Meg's ghost with an iron chandelier before regrouping with Sam, Bobby, and Bai Haorui in Bobby's protected panic room.
• Bobby identified the Mark of the Witness and explained that Lilith's spell had already broken an apocalyptic seal by causing hunters' deaths.
• Bobby found a counterspell that required an open flame outside the panic room, and the group fought past Ronald Reznick to prepare it in the study.
• Bai Haorui guarded Bobby while Sam and Dean fetched supplies, and he admitted that he had expected the Apocalypse and wanted to protect them from Heaven and Hell.
• Meg confronted Sam about Ruby and his demon-blood drinking, leaving him shaken by his dependence on power after he dispersed her with a salt round.
• Henriksen trapped Dean in the kitchen and described how Lilith had tortured the police station's victims, including skinning Nancy alive.