As Carl and Princess Donut sprint toward the church, Donut fumes that enemies can “break the doors” and make the floor unwinnable. Carl clarifies the stairwell itself should still exist on the map, but the magical doorway and surrounding walls can be damaged, causing keys to vanish; other teams report the same problem, and threats to destroy doorways are spreading. Carl recognizes the dungeon is “self-balancing” after earlier anomalies, and the worldwide demon-and-zombie outbreak is accelerating the cull.

Skirting the building where a demon is trapped in a snake-goddess body, Carl, Donut, and Samantha watch it blast fire straight up, creating a growing red cloud and a tornado of possessed demon seagulls. Samantha explains the demon is fighting control and trying to cast a large portal spell to go home, requiring many souls; she suspects Sister Ines’s control is limited and externally supported. Imani then warns from near the church that demons can open ranged hell portals that persist and suck in the environment, labeled as entrances to “Sheol, Floor 15.”

Carl realizes this is a new, lethal threat: full-strength demons can banish targets without touching them, and some need multiple “souls” to leave. He urges Imani to stay hidden and observes that demons seem to return home only after meeting a soul quota. In group chat, Rezan reports Masoud died when a possessed zombie demon touched him and a portal opened; Mandla analyzes that, like forbidden portals before, a crawler can be blocked from passing while gear and anything “behind” gets pulled through, effectively tearing the person apart—implying contact with the portal’s pull is the real danger.

The chat discussion triggers Carl’s key insight about how the portals kill and what they consume. He asks others about an unusual flood of “Build Trench” scrolls (suggesting the dungeon is seeding tools for whatever comes next) and gets an update from Katia: a team in Turkey found the stairwell chamber, but it is sealed like an unbreachable container made of the same magic as the doors, resisting Hole and phasing spells. Faced with the likelihood that most teams are now doomed without keys, Carl focuses on clearing the church area rather than gambling on digging out the stairwell.

Carl coordinates with Imani on a drastic solution: releasing the mercenaries Carl previously trapped in the training arcade—now multiplied into hundreds by a disease that makes them continuously spawn aggressive “Sluggalos.” Carl explains only Doctor Bones spread the infection widely, and he instructs Imani to send the lowest-level slugs out to be consumed by the demons so the demons can meet their soul requirements and vanish. Imani also reveals she can cure the disease (the room healer refused due to Carl’s prior instructions), and Carl pivots to gathering intel by asking Mordecai for the Sheol backstory and Prepotente to watch whether the sky and heat changes spread beyond Havana, hinting Carl may want the looming catastrophe to become global to change the game’s balance.