Infinity: Kill your way through the movie world.

Sam walked over and checked his pulse: "Weak, but stable. He needs treatment and must be taken back to the guild."

The words were not finished.

Castio's body suddenly convulsed.

The patient began to experience severe, systemic convulsions.

His eyes snapped open, his pupils turning a pale yellow, with no whites visible, just a murky yellow.

The lines under the skin reappeared, this time not black, but bright yellow, like red-hot wires embedded under the skin.

“No…” Dean tried to hold him down, but Castio’s strength was astonishing, and he easily broke free.

Castio stood up, his movements stiff, like a marionette.

He looked down at his hands, his fingers spreading and clenching repeatedly, as if testing the controllability of his body.

Then he looked up at Dean and Sam.

There was no expression on his face.

No, it wasn't that they had no expression; it was that utterly inhuman feeling, like wearing a perfect but empty mask.

“Castio?” Sam asked tentatively.

“Castio…” the being spoke, the voice coming from Castio’s vocal cords, but the tone was flat and devoid of any emotion, “This name… can still be used for now.”

It—now I can only call it 'it'—stretched my neck and my cervical spine made a cracking sound.

“Thank you.” It forced a stiff, mocking smile. “Thank you for cleaning up those…impurities, those weak, chaotic fragments of souls that only interfered with the signal.”

It took a step forward.

The ground beneath its feet formed a pale yellow, icy crust, like that of saline-alkali land.

“Now, this physical body is clean.” It raised its hand, palm up, and a ball of dark yellow energy swirled around it. “Only the very core… me remains.”

The energy cluster expands, then contracts, and then expands again.

With each pulse, the air in the warehouse becomes a little thicker.

“And as a thank you,” it looked at Dean and Sam, its pale yellow eyes devoid of any warmth, “I will make you…the first.”

"Become what?" Dean gripped the demon hunter's knife tightly.

“The carriers,” it said, “the first carriers of Leviathan to descend to earth.”

It smiled.

This time, her smile was natural and practiced, as if she had rehearsed it countless times.

But that smile was more terrifying than any threat.

Because Dean and Sam both figured it out.
This is not Castillo.

It wasn't even Castio who was being controlled.

This is something completely unfamiliar, ancient, and cold.

Wearing their friends' shells.

The air in the warehouse froze the moment the dagger was drawn.

Dean's hand holding the knife was so steady that his knuckles turned white and his veins bulged.

The patterns on the blade glowed faintly in the dim light, like a living thing breathing. He looked at Castio five meters away, or rather, at the thing wearing Castio's skin.

That thing was looking at him too.

His pale yellow eyes held no emotion, only a pure, cold observation, like a biologist examining a slide under a microscope.

"You're going to kill me?" Its voice was still Castio's, but each syllable sounded like it was synthesized by a machine. "With that...interesting little knife?"

Dean did not answer.

He rushed forward.

He took a step forward, lowered his center of gravity, and parried with the Demon Hunter knife in his left hand while thrusting with the dagger in his right hand. It was a standard close-quarters combat starting stance, a technique passed down for three generations in the Winchester family, with every movement honed through countless trials.

The dagger was thrust towards Castio's chest.

The target was two centimeters to the left of the heart. Lor had said that it was the point where the energy cores converged, and once pierced, the runes would spread along the energy channels, covering the entire body.

But the dagger missed. Castio's body bent backward in a way that defied the laws of physics, like a boneless mollusk.

The dagger grazed his chest, the tip tearing through his trench coat and revealing his pale skin underneath.

The pale yellow lines on the skin shimmered like a circuit board.

At the same time, Castio raised his right hand and flicked his fingers lightly.

I lightly flicked the side of the dagger with my index finger.

Ding--

The metallic clanging sound was as crisp as church bells.

Dean's entire right arm went numb instantly, the dagger flew out of his hand, spun three times in the air, and stuck into the concrete ground ten meters away, the blade half-buried.

The difference in strength is too great.

Dean retreated, and Sam cut in from the side, unleashing a burst of telekinesis that shattered the warehouse floor, sending concrete chunks flying like cannonballs toward Castio.

But when the stones approached within one meter of the target, they all hovered and then turned into powder.

“A futile struggle.” Castio straightened up, stretched his spine which had been bent, and cracked his knuckles. “This body may be fragile, but after my… adjustments, it’s more than enough to deal with you.”

He walked forward.

The footsteps were light, but each step left a complete footprint on the cement floor, formed by corrosion.

The footprints had neat edges, were about three centimeters deep, and had pale yellow crystals at the bottom.

Dean and Sam both stepped back.

They retreated to the warehouse wall, leaned against it, and split up to the left and right.

Dean drew a spare demon hunter knife from his waist with his left hand. It was the one Grayson had forged, with a dark blue blade. Sam held it loosely with both hands, and his telekinetic energy condensed into two semi-transparent force field blades in his palms.

"Buy time," Dean said in a low voice, "wait for an opportunity."

“There’s no chance,” Castio suddenly said, stopping eight meters away from them. “Don’t you understand? I’ve already completed the screening. Those infernal souls… have all been eliminated.”

It raised its right hand, palm up.

A ball of dark yellow energy was spinning, with a pure white spot at its core. That was the last remnant of the angelic origin of Castio, like an insect in amber, completely encased and unable to escape.

“Now all that’s left in this body,” it said, “is the purest version of myself, and this poor angelic core, as the last… fuel.”

It tilted its head, its movements as stiff as a puppet.

“You have completely freed me with that ritual; I should thank you.”

Dean's face turned ashen: "You planned this from the very beginning?"

“A plan?” Castio laughed, his smile twisted. “No, it’s instinct. The instinct of Leviathan is to select, purify, and expand. Your ritual just happens to match this instinct, just like a river naturally washes away the silt and leaves behind gold dust. I just… went with the flow.”

It took a step forward.

The area where the ground crystallized beneath its feet expanded.

“Now,” it said, “game time is over.”

It vanished suddenly, too fast for the retina to catch more than a pale yellow afterimage. The afterimage swept across eight meters and appeared in front of Dean, its right hand forming a claw as it reached for his throat.

Dean instinctively raised his knife to parry, the demon hunter's knife clashing with the claws.

There was no metallic clanging sound. The blade cut into the claws half an inch before stopping. The dark blue blade turned black, carbonized, and shattered from the point of contact, like burnt charcoal.

The fragments fell in a flurry, leaving only the hilt of the knife still in Dean's hand.

The claws continued forward.

Dean turned to the side, his claws grazing his shoulder, tearing away a piece of flesh. Blood spurted out, and the edges of the wound instantly turned black and necrotic, as if it had been splashed with strong acid.

"Dean!" Sam roared, unleashing demonic power to attack Castio's back.

Castio didn't turn around.

Two pale yellow tentacles suddenly emerged from its back, bursting out directly from under its skin, lashing at Sam like two whips. The tentacles were so fast that Sam only had time to use his telekinesis to withstand them.

The tentacle lashed out at Sam's chest, the sound of breaking ribs clearly audible. Sam was sent flying backward, crashing into the wall, sliding down, and coughing up a mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of internal organs.

The entire process took less than three seconds. (End of Chapter)