A note from an earlier crawler explains that the Hunting Grounds change in monsters and climate, but the map and political setup stay mostly consistent: the main city is always seized by a hunter before crawlers arrive, and its guards attack crawlers on sight. Using that knowledge, Carl proceeds with the risky plan he kept from the others. He equips the Ring of Divine Suffering, turns invisible with Donut and Bomo, and teleports into Zockau near the stairwell to the seventh floor. Carl sends Bomo to the only true saferoom on the block and plants a box of homing missiles by the hedge, but he quickly discovers the park around the stairwell has been turned into a trap field.

Because the plaza is trapped, Carl has Donut puddle-jump them beside the Desperado Club and begins placing explosive barrels in alleys and gaps between the bars. Donut keeps warning that attacking the hunters immediately is reckless, but Carl wants to cripple them before they can organize. As hunters start stirring and a flare search begins overhead, a drunken draconian hunter named Chin'Dua stumbles out of the saferoom bar and leans on one of Carl's bombs. Carl drops invisibility, marks Chin'Dua with the Ring of Divine Suffering, and accepts the Left to Fester debuff, which will prevent healing until Chin'Dua dies.

Carl then casts Ping to reveal nearby targets and uses his toe ring's Super Spreader ability to pass Left to Fester to the flying hunter Xindy, forcing her to share the same dependency on Chin'Dua's death. He launches homing missiles set to chase the fastest hunter-class target, and they break through Xindy's defenses and kill her in the sky. To clear his own debuff before the hunters can respond, Carl beats Chin'Dua to death. He and Donut dive into the Scuttlebutt saferoom just before the unstable barrel explodes, and the chain of blasts rips apart the block, sets fires, and collapses the entrance structure of the Desperado, trapping hunters who were inside.

Inside their personal space connection, Mordecai is horrified to learn Carl attacked the capital, while The Sledge and Bomo cast protective shells and shields on Carl and Donut. Carl refuses to stay hidden because he believes the hunters will simply lock down Zockau if they wait. He and Donut run back into the ruined street under fresh invisibility, using smoke and chaos as cover while heading for the city edge. Donut tries to cast a bard spell while they move, but the constant sprinting keeps ruining her performance.

The escape becomes much worse when Carl steps on more traps, setting off alarms and forcing him to use Tripper to trigger nearby traps at once. An invisible flying hunter begins sniping them with crossbow bolts, and Ping finally reveals that the attacker is the level-70 mayoral hunter Carl had been searching for. Carl fires a second rocket box at the hunter, but he and Donut are already under heavy pressure. They barely cross from Zockau into the Selva, where the city vanishes from the map, but Carl collapses with barbed bolts still lodged in his body, bleeding and mentally fogged despite healing. Donut calls for help, and a nearby group of crawlers emerges from the jungle; an unnamed woman takes charge and starts treating Carl as the chapter ends.