Carl concludes that the recent simultaneous deaths of several large Krakaren likely overloaded nearby soul crystals, causing them to fail. Elle confirms that station 12’s crystal has burned out and shrunk, leaving a hole that connects through the upside-down paired room; Donut names this passage the "noodle." Because Carl now thinks enough large kills can collapse more crystals, he asks Imani for help retrieving the remaining portal cart, and Li Jun, Zhang, and Li Na volunteer. Carl also adopts Li Na’s idea to use the raised cart to bait the province boss across the noodle into striking the portal and falling into the Abyss.

The group lifts the cart just enough for Donut to look through the noodle and confirm the boss is pressing against the opposite opening. Donut shoots it, the boss attacks, and the cart is lowered so the portal catches the blow and teleports the creature away. When the portal is briefly turned off, Carl discovers the crawler on the far side is Prepotente, whose team had been slowly trying to kill that same boss in order to trigger a soul-crystal chain reaction. Prepotente insults Carl, Imani shuts the argument down, and Miriam Dom pulls her strange goat-centered team away, reinforcing Carl’s sense that they are dangerous and unpredictable allies at best.

Imani then sends support so Carl, Donut, Katia, Li Jun, Li Na, Zhang, and Mongo can fight back to the abandoned cart. Carl notes how effective Li Jun and Li Na are in battle and learns that all three members of their team built around acid immunity after earlier trauma on the second floor. Once they reclaim the cart, the group rides toward the trainyard, where they use the portal to banish a huge Krakaren waiting at station 24. At the trainyard Carl sees the full scale of the disaster: the mimic dominates the cavern, ghouls and mouth-like minions swarm the area, and trapped crawler groups are still sending desperate calls for help.

Carl’s original plan is to sneak the cart along the wall, carry it to the employee line, and have Elle bring the Nightmare Express to meet them there. That plan collapses when he spots two mantaurs guarding the employee entrance. Carl consults Mordecai and the cookbook about involuntary deity summoning through his gauntlet, confirming that Grull would possess a level-40 mantaur for 290 seconds, grow to fill the chamber, and could be summoned again without a cooldown after dismissal. With time running out, Carl silently changes tactics and decides to use one of the mantaurs as a vessel right beside the portal.

Carl steps into view, throws banger spheres to provoke the mantaurs, and lures them into the tunnel. Katia slams one to the ground, Li Na locks it into magical sleep, and Li Jun shatters the other’s leg while Donut and Mongo nearly kill it. Carl stops the damage because he needs the creature alive long enough to trigger the gauntlet; he repeatedly breaks the mantaur’s arm blades until the summoning countdown appears. When the mantaur clings to the track and cannot be shoved into the portal, Zhang drives the cart forward instead. The mantaur is sucked into the portal just as Grull arrives, but Carl realizes too late that the creature is gripping his numb foot, and he is dragged through the portal with it.