A note from Crawler Allister frames the danger of dungeon vampires: unlike simple monsters, they are fast, intelligent, organized, and difficult to fight once they take over an area. That warning is immediately confirmed when Carl contacts Miriam Dom. Miriam says she previously fought the giant dinosaur with the pink feather boa and now knows she infected Big Tina with vampirism; many dinosaurs in the forest have since turned, and the elite tied to the storyline died before the infestation could be contained. Because Miriam believes the spread can still be stopped if Carl reaches her in time, Carl promises he is coming and sends a warning to Mordecai.

Carl then gets Prudence and her cubs safely into the guildhall before he and Donut step back outside into the storm. In the darkness, Donut uses her light spell at Carl’s direction, and the street is revealed to be covered with moving body parts and half-formed creatures. Carl realizes Big Tina has not merely slaughtered the town’s inhabitants. Big Tina and other dinosaurs appear to have gathered severed pieces from many dead creatures, waited for the pieces to begin reforming, and turned them into minions whose combined body-part levels make them far stronger than they were in life.

The deeper Donut shines the light, the worse the scene becomes: arms, tails, ribs, organs, and mismatched fragments crawl away from the light, while larger composite creatures show percentages of how much of a whole body they represent. Carl understands the logic of the massacre all at once. By tearing victims into many pieces and letting those pieces reform later, Big Tina can create grotesque servants with stacked levels. Horrified but unwilling to ignore a threat that could spread across the entire floor, Carl decides they have to slow the process before heading for Miriam.

Carl assembles the royal chariot, mounts a loaded missile launcher, and assigns targets throughout the pile of reanimating flesh. He and Donut race out of town with Mongo ahead of him, and once they reach the outskirts, Carl fires the missiles back into the center of the mass. The explosions earn experience and provoke an enraged roar, but Big Tina does not pursue them. Carl tells Donut the attack probably did not stop the reforming creatures completely, but he hopes it delayed them.

As they speed through the rain toward Miriam and Prepotente, Carl gathers reports from other crawlers. Gideon and Tserendolgor confirm that vampire animals are appearing far from Big Tina’s town, proving the outbreak is already spreading across the forest. Tserendolgor reports that ultraviolet-enhanced fire kills the creatures quickly, and Carl warns him not to push too hard for a top-50 party invitation because Carl suspects the event may be a trap. The chapter ends when Carl and Donut reach a small dryad settlement that has not yet fallen, only for Carl to be suddenly branded a troublemaker because of a Diwata-aligned mayor. Hostile dryads inside the saferoom are zapped away by the rules, red dots gather outside, and Carl tells Donut that for his next move he needs a little of Mongo’s blood.