Carl tries to force himself to rest before the hunters are released, realizing that even his downtime has turned into constant planning and cookbook work. He notices the strange internal "river" in his mind growing louder whenever he is under pressure, and he can only mute it when he is fully calm. While waiting for the recap show, Mordecai and Donut discuss personal-space upgrades, but Carl refuses an instant-rest bed because it feels excessive.

Carl opens his prize boxes. A Gold Junkie’s Box gives him no item but adds another ugly tattoo: a spiderweb mark on his elbow. His thirty-four Hunter Killer boxes each contain increasing amounts of gold and a severed hand or claw from a hunter he killed, for a total of 595,000 gold. His final box upgrades his Fear spell by five levels to level 10, which pleases Carl but also reminds him that he still needs to train Ping and work on combining the two spells. When Carl examines the new tattoo, he learns it is The Night Wyrm’s Nasty Little Web of Suffering, which grants access to the Guild of Suffering, a cult tied to divine suffering artifacts such as his ring.

Carl then identifies the severed appendages as Hunting Trophies. They are not just grisly souvenirs but a special currency that can be exchanged for prizes at something called the Butcher’s Masquerade, an event Carl has never heard of and Mordecai finds unusual because the dungeon normally does not encourage crawlers to kill sponsors so directly. While the show is delayed by redacted segments, Carl checks in with Louis and Firas. He learns the changelings are heading to a hidden village, Bonnie went with them, and Bonnie also built a ballista onto the Twister. Donut teases Louis about Juice Box, and the conversation briefly turns playful before the broadcast resumes.

The recap show highlights recent events and class changes across the top crawlers. Carl watches scenes from the end of the previous floor, sees Katia blamed for opening the ninth-floor portal, and learns new classes for several ranked crawlers, including Prepotente and Elle. The current top ten list remains unchanged, but Katia reacts coldly to Eva still being ranked and implies Eva will not stay there much longer. Carl and Mordecai both sense that Katia is more deeply disturbed than she is admitting.

After the recap, Borant makes several major announcements. Viewer access to private crawler messages is discontinued, but parties are now capped at thirty members and the new guild system goes live, letting multiple parties share expanded common spaces and upgrades for a price. Finally, Borant reveals that the Butcher’s Masquerade will be a special end-of-floor party for the top fifty crawlers plus guests, with hunters present, contests, and prize redemption for the trophies. Donut becomes ecstatic about a pet beauty contest for Mongo and immediately starts planning, while Carl refocuses on the more urgent problem: surviving the coming hunt. As he heads back to his bomber’s studio with Bomo, the troubling river in his mind grows louder again.