With only an hour to act, Carl organizes an assault on the FOCSA tower entrance while Princess Donut begins casting Minion Army, a dangerous war spell that leaves her rooted and glowing for minutes. Samantha and Imani enhance the spell to increase its effect, and the team prepares smoke bombs and invisibility—until Carl realizes the sluggalos have vanished.

The sluggalos suddenly charge the demon horde on their own, triggering combat early and drawing pursuing demons toward Carl’s alley while Donut is still vulnerable. To protect Donut, Elle burns her week-cooldown war spell, Graupel, which erupts far stronger than expected, annihilating the advancing demons in a massive hailstorm and rocketing Elle’s level upward. Donut’s spell finishes as well, turning part of the circling demon-bird swarm against itself so bodies rain from above; Samantha reacts with confused, alarming rambling about “the tree” and “paths,” insisting she didn’t cause the amplification.

With the approach cleared and time running, Carl abandons Puddle Jump and leads the assault team across melting slush and demon gore into the building. The FOCSA base turns out to be an open-air mall full of oblivious memory ghosts; they break into a locked residential lobby, choose the stairwell over the elevator, and begin climbing while heat and tremors worsen.

Near the 32nd floor, Carl splits off through a service route to a separate stairwell leading to the roof and places his last spider automaton at the roof door. The automaton carries both ends of a teleport trap, meant to “teleport” the snake-city boss in place, break the demon out of the boss shell, and potentially sever Sister Ines’ control—something Carl wants to do only after Ines is dead to avoid immediate retaliation from a freed, full-powered demon.

Back at the 32nd-floor hall, the team prepares to enter without forcing a deck battle, but Sister Ines suddenly sprints at them screaming “Sinner!” Carl uses the Nighty-Night wand to knock her unconscious instantly. Louis insists on making the kill to spare the others from taking their first player skull and stabs her to death—only to be immediately marked for death as the slain bard’s celestial patron responds: the Goddess Ysalte enters the realm to seek revenge.