Carl and Princess Donut head toward the church area while Carl uses Find Crawler to locate Sister Ines, discovering she is inside the FOSCA building below the possessed sea serpent rather than riding it. Carl begins coordinating via chat, excluding Imani because she is busy directing the slug-infested mercenaries. Carl tells allies to spread a plan for escaping without keys: isolate each stairwell chamber by demolishing surrounding structure, tunnel underneath with Build Trench scrolls, and stock the market with Carl’s satchel bombs to speed demolition.

As the group waits in an alley for Imani’s “sluggalo” bait to work, Amayon rages loudly and calls for Carl, prompting Carl to recognize a name from the demon’s rant and Samantha to react warily. Imani reports success: demons are portaling away the slug creatures as they attack, thinning the demon threat in her area. Meanwhile, Carl sees the broader crawler population rejecting the plan as too risky, so Carl sends a direct mass message insisting everyone can get out if key-holders leave immediately and non-key-holders stop fighting them.

Carl faces skepticism until Prepotente supports the theory, explaining he has seen gated stairwell encasements break before and estimating a 35–50% chance the idea works, depending on how wide Amayon’s spell truly is. Carl reframes the choice as survival together versus guaranteed survival alone, arguing that maximizing the number of crawlers reaching the next floor is essential for any long-term chance at freedom. After Carl’s blunt plea to stop killing each other, agreement spreads through the chats, with Katia and other groups committing to help.

A new regional quest then confirms the core premise: in two hours, Amayon’s wide-area portal will cast and inhale all souls in the Cuba region into a Sheol portal that will remain open for the rest of the floor. The quest outlines options: do nothing and use the portal timing to escape, free Amayon from the sea serpent shell to reset the quest into a world-level disaster, or attempt to kill Amayon despite invulnerability for a celestial boon. Realizing the timer provides the needed trigger, Carl tells Prepotente the theory was right.

Afterward, Donut challenges Carl’s willingness to risk their own stairwell descent and questions whether the spell affects the entire planet. Carl admits the uncertainty but commits to making the spell as broad as possible by escalating the situation: Carl intends to kill Sister Ines, free Amayon from the shell, and then buff Amayon before getting underneath a stairwell chamber to be pulled through. Donut refuses to leave Carl behind, reaffirming their partnership, and the chapter ends with both deciding to go kill Sister Ines first.