The rescue party travels to the Reaver castle to save Louis. Samantha is already there fighting robot dogs. The bombed castle features shifting honeycomb hallways and the bleached drake Calliope circling overhead. Victory arrives with multiple adjutants, increasing suspicion of a trap.

Juice Box transforms into a Hunter Wraith to possess Louis and teleport him out—risking a curse called the Inevitable Ruin.

Inside the shifting castle, the team waits for Juice Box to extract Louis. Kiwi has gone into labor. Jamal flames incoming robot dogs; Donut evaporates them with upgraded Magic Missiles. A dog carrying a Mini Tactical Nuke emerges; Elle freezes it, and Carl stores it.

Juice Box confirms she has possessed Louis. Carl tells her to drop No Disassembles bombs and flee, then remotely detonates the bombs, chain-reacting with the castle’s mini nukes. Calliope spirals from the sky and explodes—Fangs had been hiding inside as a microscopic cybernetic fragment. The Reavers are defeated. Juice Box reveals Tagg is similarly hidden inside Louis: His heart and lungs were replaced with biomechanical organs containing Tagg’s consciousness.

Mordecai explains Fangs survived Donut’s spell by being mostly robotic and escaped as a fragment that installed itself in the dragon. The AI blocks an assassination attempt on Carl by Prime Minister Glory, issuing a system-wide warning threatening Glory’s children. Rosetta confirms Tagg likely grafted himself into Louis’s organs. Kiwi is in active labor. Justice Light has retrieved the Gate of the Feral Gods.

The group enters the medical tent to save Louis from Tagg. Victory reports a no-confidence vote on Prime Minister Glory and suspicions the Dream may be allied with the Reavers. Tagg likely kept his cyborg nature secret to avoid monopoly concerns.

Samantha proposes using Princess Lunette’s naiad organs to replace Louis’s. Tipid approaches Carl, confused—the explosion damaged his brain repairs, resetting his memories. Kiwi gives birth to two legendary hybrid bear-raptor babies. Juice Box reveals the hunter wraith’s curse showed her Louis does not truly love her.

The surgical team has approximately one hour before Team Retribution captures the Dream headquarters, which would kill both Tagg and Louis. Mordecai will transplant Princess Lunette’s naiad organs into Louis to save his life.

Carl stalls Tagg via warlord chat while Donut taunts him by changing her name to Epitome Tagg’s Sexy Mother. When Tagg threatens to kill Louis, Donut’s provocations keep him too angry to act rationally.

Mordecai cuts Louis open. Tagg shuts down the organs in rage. The team executes the transplant: Donut pours Special Brew, the naiad organs are placed, and Juice Box activates them. Mordecai adds a kua-tin rebreather and gills. The procedure succeeds. Mongo eats the discarded organs, killing Tagg and defeating the Dream. With two teams remaining, Carl calls for the final phase.

Samantha mentions her involvement in the death of Emberus’s son. Emberus enters with an ultimatum: deliver Samantha within 66 minutes or the floor will be incinerated. A quest confirms everyone dies regardless, making winning Faction Wars the only option.

Carl orders Katia to consume the Orchid immediately. She falls unconscious with a 60-minute timer—several minutes short for the ceremony before destruction. Donut is devastated she didn’t get to say goodbye. Carl plans to stall Emberus by delivering Samantha at the last moment.

With 21 minutes remaining, Donut says goodbye to the NPC known as the Sledge, who casts Zerzura—transferring Larracos and Shanty Town to the 12th floor. Over 50,000 outworlders who came to help are ejected, with only 28,000 surviving. Of 32,500 crawlers who reached the ninth floor, 20,221 remain.

Carl gives the Ring of Divine Suffering to Donut, who swallows it. Milk announces the departing crawlers’ gift: Each has contributed skill pages using her ink technique to the cookbook. Carl’s Book of Voodoo splits into two volumes. Thousands chant and throw flowers in farewell.

Ferdinand and Juice Box leave the realm, forfeiting their positions and defeating Team Retribution. The Princess Posse wins Faction Wars.

Carl launches Samantha toward Emberus using the xistera, buying time for Katia’s ceremony. Prepotente enters a stairwell, telling Carl he loves him. Most remaining crawlers plan to take deals on the tenth floor. Louis stays to say goodbye to Katia. As Carl prepares to enter the stairwell, he thinks he hears Eris laughing in his mind.

Katia wakes, and Eileithyia, “Goddess of Childbirth and Female Pain,” appears but is temporarily hijacked by CEO Huanxin Jinx. Jinx speaks through the goddess, berating everyone for their performance (832). Donut casts level 16 Laundry Day, ripping Huanxin from the goddess’s armor into a circle of Words of Power. Donut demonstrates new abilities including Monologue and a crossbow mount. Mordecai loads a bolt tipped with his mother’s ashes into Katia’s crossbow. Donut fires, killing Huanxin Jinx and avenging Mordecai’s brother.

They exploit a glitch: Sponsored gods freeze until their host chooses. Bautista arrives with cybernetic limbs for Katia. She chooses pregnancy to reach the kinder facility, with Louis as the biological father. Eileithyia transforms Katia back to human, revealing the missing limbs Katia sustained throughout the crawl. They attach the cybernetic limbs onto Katia, Eileithyia makes her pregnant, and Katia disappears. 

Carl and Donut enter the stairwell. Justice Light activates his trap: A Bijou fairy trap and demon trap fall through a permanent Nothing portal, breaking the Nothing and draining into the Ascendency, Sheol, and Scolopendra’s Lair. Scolopendra awakens. Justice Light dies at peace in Emberus’s fire.

York, a tenodera mantis aboard the starship Homecoming Queen, reflects on his emotional numbness; he was bred as a child-killing soldier. He recalls destroying an orc yacht filled with children and feeling nothing.

Boomer contacts York: The former crawlers won Faction Wars. York confirms the ship’s weapons and power armor are operational. Boomer orders Cronus suits prepared for a pregnant veteran on Earth’s surface. On news feeds, Porthus announces the formation of the Open Intellect Pacifist Action Network. York finally feels anticipation as phase two begins.

Carl arrives in the Outreach Guild’s zero zone. Quasar presents unfavorable exit deals. Carl declines all. Quasar reveals Donut also declined, and her lawyer Princess Chandra is apparently Carl’s new wife according to Eris.

At Squirties Way Station, Eris appears and torments proprietor Zander.

On the 17th floor Backstage, shadow mimic Larry trains with other monsters while struggling with starvation—the Prime allows only one Drek baby per week. The mimics communicate via a communal link, bickering over plans to seize the Pineapple Cabaret from Menerva. A system message announces that outsiders from the 18th floor are entering the dungeon, and panicked, low-level outworlders begin flooding through the main entrance, dying to basic traps almost immediately.

Menerva announces over the loudspeaker that the Pineapple Cabaret is real—she built it with her friend Herot—but it has become infested with creatures from outside the dungeon. With the influx of outworlders sure to expose her hidden existence to the showrunners, she enters the cabaret herself, leaving instructions on her desk for the monsters to follow.

Epitome Noflex, Tagg’s mother, appears at level one after regenerating and deliberately steps onto a spike trap, asking Larry to kill her so she can respawn in her secured resort room on the 18th floor. Overwhelmed by her scent, Larry loses control and begins consuming her. Despite her level-one designation, her power far exceeds what the indicator suggests, and consuming her triggers Larry’s transformation into a new, superior form—the new Epitome Noflex. The original Noflex dies and regenerates elsewhere. The newly transformed mimic proposes a revised plan over the communal link: Rather than seizing the dungeon or the cabaret, the shadow mimics should feast on the outworlders flooding in from the 18th floor.