Carl scouts the church from an alley and sees wolf-sized pox slugs devouring a ram cleric, with no new demons arriving yet. Carl suspects Sister Ines is losing control of Amayon and may be unable to send more help, even as threats still cluster along the nearby coastline.

After Carl contacts Imani to move in, a large group of allied crawlers unexpectedly emerges from the church grounds. Samantha rushes Louis, Mongo barrels into the reunion, and familiar faces—Imani, Katia, Elle, Bautista, Britney, Tran, Li Jun, Li Na, Zhang, Chris, and others—reveal they have reached Havana despite the key bottleneck.

Li Jun explains the group’s arrival was enabled by Lucia Mar during the “Battle of Beijing,” where Lucia refused to engage with the card system, slaughtered opponents, and stole a key by killing Fang and his wife. Lucia then waited at the stairwell, helped the keyless survivors, and dropped five rare personal space upgrade modules before going down the stairs, claiming Florin asked her to assist.

Carl examines the module: a tier-3 “Doggie Door” that lets a personal-space door exit through any door previously used on the floor, effectively creating shared fast travel waypoints for a party. One module was installed in Imani’s room, letting Meadowlark members step directly into locations like the church, and the group notes it would be costly to enable for the entire guild; they also reveal they pooled money to buy the barracks upgrade.

Elle and Imani insist they are staying to help rather than retreating to safety with their keys, framing the situation as collective survival. Privately, Li Jun adds that Lucia turned hostile before leaving and promised to kill Princess Donut and Mongo on the next floor; Carl hides this from Donut. Watching the group laugh together, Carl recognizes loneliness and isolation as the dungeon’s deeper weapon, feels renewed clarity and hope, and accepts command as Elle asks what they must do next.