An editor’s note quotes Crawler Priestly’s despairing final-days journal from Faction Wars: the Skull Empire’s brutality, the sense that gods only “notice” mass slaughter, and the looming destruction of Larracos. A later note from Crawler Drakea warns readers not to continue to Priestly’s last entry, implying Priestly breaks after seeing what happened to Larracos.

In the present, Carl rides a motorcycle through rainy darkness with Samantha strapped to the handlebars while coordinating by chat with Elle, who urges Carl to stop Imani from sacrificing herself. Donut complains the bike’s noise will draw everything nearby, so Carl stows the motorcycle and continues on foot as they near the coast and Sister Ines’s exit.

Hearing distant chanting, Carl sends Samantha to scout using the head-thrower extension. Samantha reports a grotesque scene on the beach: a massive coiled sea-snake-like creature washed ashore, heaps of dead seals and crabs, and undead baby seals, crabs, fish, and even seagulls amid a red-frothed sea. Samantha also spots “the cat lady” atop the snake’s head reciting poetry, which Carl realizes must be Sister Ines.

The system abruptly marks The Chowder War as failed and replaces it with a new quest, Hell Comes to Crawler Town, explaining that the immense death has drawn gods and demons, and that zombies provide weakened “shells” for demonic possession. A system warning announces a Demon Eviction event in Cuba: evicted demons will possess the recently fallen or weakened and attempt to drag living souls into Sheol to return.

Mordecai warns this escalation normally happens much later and gives survival rules: avoid grapples, destroy heads or secure corpses, and expect possessed bodies to be faster, smarter, and deadly. Realizing Sister Ines is surrounded by undead and that losing her could cost Imani’s key, Carl hastily lays traps, prepares for a card battle, and has Donut cast combat buffs while Carl casts Wisp Armor for charm protection. Carl orders Samantha to bite Sister Ines to help trigger their plan; as Samantha complies and Carl recalls Samantha, Carl misjudges the landing distance, ending the chapter on a cliffhanger.