Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 8 Summary

A Parade of Horribles Summary

Book 8 · By Matt Dinniman · Read · Watch

The tenth floor trades the battlefield for a deadly vehicle competition. Carl and Donut need a crew, a machine that can keep moving, and a way to adapt as the race’s demands change. The other competitors include fellow crawlers and dungeon inhabitants, making the question of whom to help more complicated than simply beating whoever is ahead.

A Parade of Horribles combines frantic racing, improvised upgrades, and the strain of carrying on after Faction Wars. Survival requires cooperation, but the contest is built to turn competitors against one another. With their friendships and obligations traveling alongside them, Carl and Donut have more to protect than their place in the race.

Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 8 Video Summary

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Chandra Interlude

Donut’s new lawyer, Princess Chandra, conducts an Outreach Guild interview with Donut from a damaged naga battle cruiser. She helped overthrow the naga king and put her uncle in power, and now wants to make enough money to leave for the center system.

Chandra is the widow of Rishi, whom Carl killed in the previous book. Because of this, she can claim Widow’s Rights, allowing her to choose to marry her husband’s killer without his consent. She has used that right to marry Carl and claim his earnings. The Faction Wars prize money has already gone into her trust. Chandra has also hired assassins to kill Quasar.

During the interview, Donut makes sure the audience can see the marriage certificate, court orders, and banking records. She then offers fifty million credits to anyone who stops Chandra and her family, with another ten million for a head she can display.

Chapter 1

Carl reaches the tenth floor with 5,501 crawlers remaining, as most of the crawlers who survived Faction Wars have already taken exit deals.

Quasar reports that Scolopendra is awake and moving. Justice Light’s trap connected the Nothing, Sheol, the Halls of Ascendency, and Scolopendra’s lair, releasing creatures that are now attacking guests on the eighteenth floor. Those guests are trying to reach safety on the sixteenth floor, but first they have to survive the seventeenth.

Donut chooses a new class called Assassin of Sekhmet, which gives her a healing aura and magical pet hats that provide extra protection and other buffs for Mongo and Rend.

At the garage, they meet two gremlins: Hedy, who handles mechanical vehicles, and Waldrip Chris, who trains living mounts. The type of vehicle they choose determines which attendant stays with them. Donut chooses a mechanical vehicle, leaving Hedy as their garage attendant.

Chapter 2

Carl and Donut spin a prize wheel to find out which vehicle they’ll get. It lands on a food truck with a Big Shot Chicken logo, styled to look like a Prohibition-era car. A giant plastic Tommy gun sits on the front, partly blocking the windshield.

Cascadia begins the announcement, sounding distressed as she tells the remaining crawlers they should have taken exit deals. Zev then takes over to explain the floor’s rules: roughly 1,800 teams will compete in seven races, called heats, over seven days. At least one team is eliminated from each heat. Normally, that’s the team that comes in last, but if another team dies or fails to finish, the remaining teams can all advance.

Each team that completes a heat earns a vehicle upgrade, while the winner gets to choose between three regular upgrades or one Golden upgrade.

Zev also explains that teams can attack other vehicles but cannot steal them. They must change drivers between heats, since the same person cannot drive two races in a row.

Chapter 3

The first race is a fifty-three-kilometer course through the Caves of the Screeching Death Manatees, with six hours to finish.

Prepotente suspects that if too many NPC teams are eliminated, crawler teams will be brought in to replace them, forcing friends to race against one another. Imani suggests keeping the other NPC teams alive whenever possible, and Carl agrees.

At the cave entrance, a bugbear runs from a burning minivan blocking the road. Nearby, an enormous manatee crushes another team’s giant ladybug mount. The mount’s death causes its rider to explode, eliminating their team.

Chapter 4

Donut kills the manatee attacking the bugbears. The manatee’s description links it to a world turned into an adventure park, and says one of the people responsible for the park is now staying at Club Scolopendra. Rather than take experience points for the kill, Donut chooses an audience vote that will send either the manatee or someone representing it into the eleventh-floor arena.

Carl stops to help Radoslav and Jasha, the two surviving bugbears from Team Free Love. Their third teammate died when their minivan crashed. They remember earlier lives in the dungeon and the cold place where they waited between them. A voice offered them a choice: return to that cold or enter the races for a chance to win a real home.

Although their damaged minivan can no longer run, the system still counts it as a vehicle, so their team has not been eliminated. Carl offers to tow it across the finish line.

Chapter 5

As they travel, Team Sparkles overtakes them on a mount made of living vines called an Avernus Creeper. Its riders, a unicorn named Dwight and a rat-like Mandagot Fink named Lucienne, insult Carl and Donut before their mount fires thorns as it pushes past. Carl collects some of the thorns after learning that each one can grow into an invasive plant, although they cannot sprout on this floor.

Carl and Donut reach Hungry Eyes Village with the minivan in tow, and Radoslav thanks them for saving his team. Carl and Donut finish seventh, with Team Free Love coming in eighth. Although the bugbears finish last, they survive because the manatee already eliminated the team riding the ladybug mount.

Chapter 6

Carl and Donut get a preview of the second heat. They’ll be assigned one of two ten-kilometer routes, each with a boss they must defeat before finishing.

Because Carl drove in the first heat, someone else must drive in the second, and they initially plan for Donut to take over. Hedy suggests that Carl build controls suited to Donut instead of spending an official upgrade on them. Ordinary modifications are allowed between races, but magical improvements must come through the racing system.

For their vehicle upgrade, they choose retractable spider legs, allowing the truck to climb walls but slowing it down while deployed. Hedy considers the legs important because only the first three heats are guaranteed to have paved roads.

Chapter 7

Mordecai takes the form of a shadow mimic on this floor, allowing him to imitate other creatures. In the saferoom, he appears as a Moon Reaper, a creature whose gaze can trap people in frightening visions that seem to last much longer than the encounter itself.

Bigs, the sluggalo, says Mordecai told her that she would drown in fire. Splash Zone also experienced a frightening vision involving his own family. Mordecai says these threats and visions are meant to hurt and frighten people, and warns them against treating the experiences as reliable predictions. Rosetta suggests keeping new visitors away from him until they understand what triggers his transformations.

Carl learns a new spell called Oozy Form, which temporarily turns him into slime so he can slip through small openings.

Donut’s new Assassin of Sekhmet class gives her Smoke Form, a spell that lets her turn into smoke. It also gives her a healing aura called Healer’s Grasp. Separately, the class strengthens the plant and vermin spells she already gained through her previous class, Oak Fell.

Chapter 8

Donut’s new class provides protective headgear for Mongo and Rend. Once per day, if Donut’s health falls below ten percent, either pet wearing its headgear within three meters of her becomes invulnerable for a minute. During that time, Mongo’s strength doubles and Rend gains the ability to heal a party member. Rend’s headband also gives his bites another effect: if he kills a creature with a bite, there is a chance its corpse will be raised as an undead servant.

Among Donut’s rewards are Emergency Gremlin scrolls, which summon a gremlin to repair a broken-down vehicle or heal a living mount during a race. She also receives Danforth crossbow bolts, which lock whatever part of a target they strike in place.

Donut also receives the Crupper of the Benevolent Champion and an edible figure shaped like the god Meatus, which she eats.

Chapter 9

Eating the Meatus figure transforms Donut’s claws, which now glow blue and are powerful enough to slice straight through the saferoom table. Mordecai explains that her new claws can cut ghosts as well as physical objects. This ability also carries over to Astral Paw, the spell she uses to create a magical paw that can reach things from a distance. The downside is that the change is permanent and Donut cannot turn the effect off, although retracting her claws keeps her from accidentally cutting everything she touches.

One of Donut’s reward boxes also contains a spellbook, which she uses to learn Ice Slick, a spell that lets her cover an area in ice.

Chapter 10

Carl receives a potion that adds more quick-access inventory slots and a baby backpack for carrying Donut on his chest. With Donut buckled in, he should be able to use Oozy Form to turn them both into slime or bring her along when he phases through an obstacle, though they still need to test it.

Carl then opens a fan box containing belongings he inherited from Rishi through his marriage to Chandra. Broken furniture, damaged appliances, and rubbish spill out into the room, and Carl searches the pile for anything useful.

Chapter 11

Carl takes a second cleaner bot out of his inventory to help clear away Rishi’s belongings, but it immediately shrieks and tries to wriggle free. Mordecai resets the bot, an old model once used to clean Architect Houston’s operating room.

Back in the garage, Carl and Donut find Hedy and the other gremlins taking their truck apart to repair damage and install upgrades.

Chapter 12

Carl and Donut leave their garage to meet the other racers in the Team Roundabout. Saferoom rules apply here, so the teams cannot attack each other.

They find Radoslav and Jasha, the bugbears they rescued, who show them a magical cooler they received as a reward, which never seems to run out of peach beer.

Three ninjas from another racing team, the Wild Hunt, emerge from their garage. Their leader is Chiyome, a Razor Fox with an enchanted helmet that lets her assess the abilities of people nearby.

Chapter 13

Genesis and Rapture emerge from their garage. The two mantaurs belong to a racing team called “Lady Dominators and the Gimp.” Chiyome warns Carl and Donut about their domination magic, which can drain energy or mana, but Mordecai thinks Carl’s Mind Balance and Donut’s high Charisma should protect them.

The Lady Dominators’ third teammate has been split down the middle, leaving only the right half of his body, which is kept alive by magic. Donut recognizes him as Dong Quixote’s missing partner, Corcunda, also known as Corky.

Carl then receives a quest to reunite Dong with Corky, find Corcunda’s other half, Porky, and get a fleshmancer to put the two halves back together.

Chapter 14

Carl and Donut enter Hungry Eyes Vendor Village, where the main square has no saferoom protection. Other areas are protected from attacks, but poisoning is allowed everywhere in the village. They also cannot inspect the food to check what it contains.

They find Prepotente arguing with his racing teammate, Jurgen, a general from Faction Wars who has ignored Prepotente’s warnings about the street food and is now throwing up. The two ride Sweety, a giant, pig-like animal, in the races, but Prepotente fears Jurgen’s insistence on trusting his instincts will get them killed in the next heat. Jurgen also talks to his absent wife, Heidi, as though she were standing beside him.

Chapter 15

Carl and Donut join their friends at the Lollipop karaoke bar, where Elle is being pestered by a fan named Linus. He has paid to visit her in the dungeon through her show contract, which allows him to stay even though she wants him to leave her alone.

Florin has hired extra help for Lucia’s turn driving because her personality has been changing unpredictably since her dogs died. He still doesn’t know why she stayed in the dungeon after promising to take an exit deal.

Imani reports that Li Na, who is racing with Zhang, killed every other team in their first race. This could force them to face other crawlers in the next heat as replacements for the teams they killed.

Louis, Britney, and Bautista’s racing vehicle is a lowrider that sits so close to the ground that it kept scraping along the track. They finished second to last and survived only because another team had already been eliminated. As the last surviving team to finish, they had to let the audience choose their upgrade and received glowing wheel spinners instead of something useful.

Chapter 16

Feeling lonely, Prepotente asks Carl and Donut about using an enchanted pet biscuit on Ragazzaccia, who was his girlfriend when they were ordinary goats.

He has three of these biscuits, each with a different effect. One would turn Ragazzaccia into an intelligent, upright, level-one crawler and permanently charm her into loving him. Another would make her a crawler but keep her original body without forcing her to fall in love, while the third would turn her into a dungeon pet that could gain levels and abilities.

Donut tells Prepotente he shouldn’t use magic to make someone love him and warns that Ragazzaccia would be in terrible danger as a level-one crawler on this floor. She offers to talk to him every day instead, and he leaves the biscuits unused.

Chapter 17

Bucket Boy, a crocodilian NPC rescued on the previous floor, volunteers to drive for Carl and Donut during the second race, so Carl teaches him to use the truck’s controls and retractable spider legs. Hedy has also made controls that Donut can operate if she needs to take over.

Carl tries to remove the giant plastic Tommy gun blocking the windshield, but the system won’t allow it. The truck’s navigation system speaks in the voice of Dr. Metcalf, Bea’s former therapist, while Donut discovers that the freezer automatically replaces any food they take out.

Just before the race, Zhang reports that the replacements for the five teams Li Na killed include two crawler teams, one of which belongs to Tran, so Li Na and Zhang will now have to race against him.

Chapter 18

Carl and Donut prepare an attack on the Lady Dominators’ team with help from Chiyome and the bugbears. Donut will use Katia’s crossbow to shoot their driver, Rapture, with a Danforth bolt that holds her in place while Chiyome’s giant bear rams the car.

Carl shatters their truck’s windshield to give Donut a clear shot at Rapture. Nearby, Team Sparkles argues with another team of slime-like guck elementals, then destroys the elementals’ vehicle with a cannon before Donut can attack.

Carl calls off Donut’s shot to avoid an additional elimination, which could bring replacement crawler teams into their next race.

Chapter 19

As Bucket Boy drives through the hail, Donut uses her Shield spell to cover the truck.

They catch up with the Lady Dominators and another racing team called One Fine Pig, whose armored vehicle also has a protective shield. Its members are two Tigrans, Nico and Dario, and an ordinary Yorkshire pig named Penelope. When Carl examines Penelope, her system description explains that a curse makes certain NPCs fall in love with her, including both Tigrans and the thunder god Taranis. Taranis protects her, so anyone who hurts Penelope will be marked for death by the god.

Chapter 20

The racers are blocked by two giant kangaroo-like bosses. They cannot pass the boss ahead of them until it is defeated, so the teams near Carl agree to work together.

The bosses’ descriptions explain that their young died because they could not protect them from the constant storms. They are now grabbing other creatures to replace the joeys in their pouches, but the pouches secrete an oil that burns the skin of other species.

A razor fox from Chiyome’s team attacks a boss from inside its pouch, but the boss eats him, restoring all its health. Chiyome tells Carl that the pouch seems to be its only weak spot. Carl then asks Donut to examine the dead joeys, and she discovers that their skins can be collected, giving him the idea of wearing one to protect himself from the oil while attacking from inside.

Chapter 21

Carl summons eight Emergency Gremlins to distract the kangaroo boss, then summons Günter and has Pontiff, One Fine Pig’s hired driver, strike him with a mallet. Günter carries the force of that blow to the boss, knocking it down when he reaches it. Genesis, one of the Lady Dominators, is supposed to retrieve a dead joey for Carl, but her grappling hook hits and kills the trapped Upgrade Engineer instead.

Carl takes the enchanted joey skin the engineer was wearing and puts it on to protect himself from the burning oil. The costume forces him to hop and makes his hands difficult to use, while leaving his face exposed. He jumps into the boss’s pouch, plants explosives, and escapes with his Gloom Wraith Phase ability as the blast kills the boss. However, he discovers that he cannot remove the joey-skin costume until its twelve-hour timer runs out.

Team Sparkles wins the race, while Carl and Donut finish last among the surviving teams.

Chapter 22

The next race begins in eight hours, so Carl will still be wearing the joey costume during it. The course runs thirty kilometers downhill through waves of enemies, with only twenty minutes to finish. Because Carl and Donut came in last among the surviving teams, the audience chooses their upgrade: a Princess Throne that Hedy says will help protect Donut.

Meanwhile, Bucket Boy tells Dong that they have found Corky on another racing team.

Chapter 23

Learning this, Dong rushes to the Lady Dominators’ garage. Carl struggles to catch up in his kangaroo costume, worried that Dong will go inside, where saferoom rules do not protect him.

Zev announces that teams must make a media appearance between races and books Carl and Donut for an interview on Plenty of Plenty. She also reads the AI’s announcement that the eleventh floor is called A Parade of Horribles, where the surviving crawlers will join a parade leading to an arena. The AI claims it has intercepted a Valtay bomb capable of destroying the entire solar system and redirected it to an undisclosed location.

Carl’s Escape Plan skill reveals a hidden message in a drawing on an invoice from a vehicle modification shop. The message is from Akuma, one of the war mages from Faction Wars, who tells Carl to eliminate two teams in the next race, then come to the shop alone afterward for an explanation. Akuma claims he can smuggle Carl’s friends to the Pineapple Cabaret and help them escape the chaos.

Chapter 24

Carl finds Dong on his hands and knees outside the Lady Dominators’ garage, saying he feels sick while Genesis and Rapture mock him from behind the closed door. Corky calls back to Dong from inside, and hearing each other is enough to complete the first part of Carl’s reunion quest.

The quest description explains that Corky is the half of Corcunda who stayed a dancer and fell in love with Dong, while the Porky half became a singer and dislikes him. A fleshmancer can reunite the two halves and free Corcunda from his obligation to race for the Lady Dominators, but it is unclear which personality will remain. Completing the quest will let Carl choose any two people within the AI’s reach to bring into the eleventh-floor arena, though it will fail if Dong dies.

Back in the garage, Imani notices that Dong’s health is not recovering despite being healed. He left his sock full of nickels behind when he rushed to see Corky, and she suspects that being away from it made him sick. Returning to the sock seems to be keeping him alive without restoring his health. For now, they decide to keep Dong near the sock and out of the races.

Chapter 25

Carl drinks a Platinum Hotlist Expansion potion, which adds more quick-access inventory slots and unlocks a feature called Contingency. This lets him set actions to happen automatically when the conditions he chooses are met.

Mongo is supposed to be guarding Hedy in the garage, but he wanders into the safe room drunk, with Rend following him. Mordecai then enters in his reaper form, rises into the air, and turns toward Rend. In a deep voice, he warns Rend that he will die again, and Rend immediately drops dead.

Chapter 26

Reaper Gaze was already one of Rend’s weaknesses, which is why Mordecai’s ability killed him instantly, but Rend revives for the sixth time with his memories intact and becomes twenty-five percent stronger. This resurrection also gives him a new weakness: potatoes. With Mordecai in the safe room and an endless supply of fries in the truck, Carl decides to keep Rend in his pet carrier except when they are fighting. Imani suggests the guild’s pet stables as another place where he can safely get some exercise.

Rosetta and Tipid return with two newly hired mercenaries and news that they may have found a fleshmancer capable of putting Corcunda back together. They also have a lead on the guild for performers where Porky may be working as a singer.

Chapter 27

Carl and Donut are teleported to a production facility at the bottom of the ocean for their appearance on Plenty of Plenty, a show run by the Plenty, the goat-like caprids who sponsor Carl. Lexis, who normally hosts After Hours, meets them to help prepare for the interview. Her own show is on hold, and she is temporarily working for Borant while she is unable to leave the solar system.

Lexis explains that the Open Intellect Action Network, the resistance group led by former crawler and Cookbook author Porthus, seized the ships orbiting Earth after Faction Wars. With the showrunners’ communications disrupted, Zev is struggling to keep the crawl’s broadcasts running and has brought in Lexis to help.

When Donut asks about Katia, Lexis says they have been in contact with her, but Katia and the others have not returned to the children’s facility in South Asia. An unidentified entity is protecting the facility in their absence. Lexis starts to describe seeing Katia the day before, but stops mid-sentence after her tablet beeps and turns the conversation back to the upcoming interview.

Chapter 28

During the Plenty interview, the caprid panelists question Carl and Donut and let them ask questions in return. Carl asks what Justice Light did at the end of Faction Wars, and a panelist named Bathin explains that he broke open the dungeon’s Nothing, releasing its inhabitants onto other floors. Carl discovers that Bathin is one of the chief engineers of the Plenty’s tunnel network, which connects star systems across the galaxy.

Carl then receives urgent messages from Orren, the Syndicate liaison, and Prime Minister Victory. They tell him the AI’s influence has spread beyond Earth’s solar system, and dungeon gods are appearing near tunnel connections in other systems. Orren explains that the system used to control gods without sponsors has been turned off, leaving them free to act on their own. Orren and Victory have been unable to reach the Plenty’s leadership, but the caprids Carl is interviewing are the very people they need to speak to.

Orren gives Carl a carefully worded question to ask about the tunnels. Instead, Carl asks the panel whether the public knows that gods have escaped the dungeon and that the AI’s enhancement zones have spread into the tunnel network. He warns the audience that they are in danger and need to run. Victory confirms that the warning went out live and that the AI allowed it to be broadcast.

Chapter 29

Carl’s warning sends the caprid panel into a panic. They believe the escaped gods signal a coming judgment by the Epicure, the god Prepotente worships, and most abandon the interview. Gamori, the Plenty’s matriarch and lead tunnel engineer, admits she kept the news from the herd because she feared exactly this reaction. Carl objects to being blamed when nobody had told him what was happening either.

Harbinger, the caprid liaison who monitored Carl’s earlier sponsor interviews, appears in the studio and reveals that Gamori is his mother. He accuses her of ignoring his warnings after he recognized Residual activity in the dungeon and realized how unstable the AI had become. Gamori orders him to leave, but he pulls a gun on Carl while insisting he was the one trying to protect everyone.

Before Harbinger can fire, the AI turns his body inside out, killing him and covering Carl, Donut, and Lexis in his remains. Gamori leaves, and a shaken Lexis tells Carl and Donut that their interview has just broken the show’s ratings records.

Chapter 30

Carl’s joey costume still makes it difficult to reach the truck’s pedals, so Gluteus Maxx, one of the dancers from the Desperado Club, is chosen to drive the third race. He did best at Mario Kart, but Carl discovers he has been taking stimulants Samantha found among Rishi’s belongings, believing they will help him win. He is now hallucinating, and there is no time to set up Donut’s driving controls before the race begins.

Donut’s Princess Throne upgrade has been installed in the passenger seat. It unfolds into a pet bed designed to protect her in a crash and comes with a speaking assistant she names Dorota.

Carl prepares miniature missiles filled with a special stink-bomb mixture to interfere with the other teams’ vehicles without destroying them. The AI also announces that the vehicles will be protected from damage for the first ninety seconds of the race.

As they wait to start, thousands of Sugar Hermits pour onto the road. These creatures wear decorated skulls as shells and feed on brains and bones, and their description says they are migrating toward the enormous skull blocking the finish line. One wraps its tentacles around the head of a Draconian mercenary hired by One Fine Pig, but cannot hurt him while the opening protection is active.

Chapter 31

Luca Di, one of the crawlers who gave Donut her train hat, contributes a spell called Temporary Macaroni to her Banquet spellbook. His mother Giulia’s new race restored the memories she had lost to dementia, allowing them to reconcile before she died on the bubble floor. Luca thanks Carl and Donut for that time together and tells Donut not to blame herself for the choice she faced with War Crime.

As Gluteus speeds recklessly into the race, Carl lowers two cages mounted on arms outside the truck. Each carries a hired ghoul worker who can throw potion balls at the other racers. Carl then fires his missiles at the teams One Fine Pig and Team Sparkles, coating their protective shields in thick mucus that blocks the drivers’ view and slows their vehicles.

Donut uses her Shield spell to protect the truck, but the cages remain outside its barrier, leaving the ghouls exposed to the Sugar Hermits swarming the road. The ghouls throw Biscuit Packs into the creatures’ path. These packets expand into hard foam, crushing some of the Sugar Hermits and forcing others aside.

After their truck passes Team Sparkles, Donut casts Wall of Fire alongside their own vehicle to hold back the Sugar Hermits. The spell’s increased level produces a much taller and longer wall than Carl expects.

Chapter 32

The AI identifies the enormous skull blocking the finish as Eym’s, a giant beetle-like creature it says Odette killed. It has borrowed pieces of his corpse from the Nothing to use in the races.

Sugar Hermits begin raining down onto the vehicles, and Rapture, from the Lady Dominators, kills one of Carl’s exposed ghoul workers with fire. Donut uses her new Temporary Macaroni spell to create enormous pasta tubes that the truck can drive through for shelter. She repeatedly casts the spell to extend their covered route, though Sugar Hermits still get through the gaps between the tubes.

Carl tries to guide Chiyome into the tunnels, but the system tells him she is already dead. The Wild Hunt and Juggler teams are both eliminated after losing all their members. Carl also loses his remaining ghoul when a Sugar Hermit decapitates it as he tries to pull it back into the truck.

When Gluteus passes out, Carl grabs the wheel and Donut takes over the accelerator. With the giant skull still blocking the finish, Carl leans out of the truck, keeping one hand on the wheel, and prepares to smash through it with a kick powered by Daughter’s Kiss.

Before he can land the kick, Dwight fires a projectile that knocks Corky’s cage aside, clips the Lady Dominators’ car, and strikes the skull. The explosion launches all three vehicles across the finish line. Carl’s truck breaks apart on landing, but he and Donut win the race.

Chapter 33

Because Carl and Donut both helped drive during the last race, neither is allowed to drive in the next one, so Dong volunteers to take over.

The next race will take them ninety-nine kilometers through a jungle filled with acid rain, traps, and monsters. They have twenty hours to finish, including a required refueling stop in the city of Upano. Several heats will share the course, and some routes require the teams to complete quests along the way.

Messages from the other crawlers show that more of them are being forced to race against one another. Imani and Elle report that two opposing teams were eliminated in their heat, including a newly arrived crawler team, while Zhang’s opponents are now all crawlers. Carl sends Rosetta and Tipid to hire at least two reliable drivers, along with more mercenaries to defend the truck during the races.

Chapter 34

With the joey costume finally off, Carl returns to the safe room to recover. Rosetta and Tipid bring in three mercenaries who have already helped teams finish first and second in earlier races. Olga, a toad-like Grulke, and Finley, a badger-like Porsuk with poisonous enchanted claws, can drive, while Quemada, a small fire fairy, will help protect them.

Olga recognizes Samantha, who killed her girlfriend Helado on the previous floor and nearly killed Olga as well. When Quemada notices Carl’s shrine to Emberus, she demands three times the price they had agreed on. Carl badly needs the drivers, so he accepts.

Chapter 35

Quemada explains that Emberus sent her to help Carl complete his quest to kill Hellik, the god’s own brother. She expects to die in the attempt, so the higher fee she demanded is meant to support her mercenary teammates afterward. Carl fears that Emberus will kill him if he refuses, but also punish him for killing Hellik if he succeeds.

As Carl compares Hellik with the other gods he has encountered, his thoughts turn to Eris, the goddess of chaos. She suddenly appears with robot Uzi Jesus, now her pet, and freezes everyone except Carl. Her presence activates the Scavenger’s Daughter patch on his back, randomly making a nearby temporary magical effect permanent. Eris tells him Imani will be able to explain the result once she leaves.

Eris offers to protect Carl from Emberus and help him kill Hellik if he sincerely becomes her worshipper. In return, he must help her win the Ascendency, the gods’ competition for the throne, cooperate with Akuma, and allow her to cause destruction on Earth’s surface. She claims she can rebuild afterward.

She then produces a coin showing four possible disasters: Donut’s death, Carl losing his feet, most of his friends dying, or fire devastating the surface. Eris says one must happen before the next Ascendent is chosen. Carl offers to worship her immediately to stop it, but she refuses.

When robot Uzi Jesus tosses the coin, Carl catches it and holds on despite its burning heat. Eris announces that he has chosen a fifth possibility, and the coin disappears, leaving a slowly turning swirl tattooed on his right palm. She will not tell him whether this means escaping the disasters or facing some combination of them, and even the AI admits it does not understand what she is doing.

Chapter 36

Imani discovers what changed when Eris activated Carl’s patch: Jacobus, the Reverse Tooth Fairy she normally summons for only a short time, will now remain with her permanently instead of returning to his card.

Carl tells his friends about Eris’s coin and the disasters she threatened. Prepotente compares the situation to the earlier trap that forced them to find a way to save both Donut and Katia, and agrees to think about a way out. Carl also has ideas for saving his friends, but first wants to question Akuma about his offer of an escape.

Chapter 37

Carl brings his friends to Chicken and Waffles and Upgrades, despite Akuma’s demand that he come alone. The shop has no safe-room protections, and a passage behind its jukebox leads them to a clerk Akuma has killed. Before entering the room where the war mage is waiting, Carl disables and takes a disintegration trap hidden on the door.

Elle confronts Akuma about the war mages stealing their gate and attacking her during Faction Wars. Donut silences him with her Mute spell while Elle attacks him with ice magic and demands answers. Imani prepares an anti-magic shield to prevent him from retaliating when they let him speak.

Chapter 38

Akuma explains that the dungeon has too few NPCs to replace all the eliminated racing teams, forcing the organizers to draw on earlier floors and mercenary reserves. Reusing NPCs too many times lets memories of their previous lives break through their assigned identities. He credits Herot, a former crawler Carl recognizes as another Cookbook author, with developing the Worm Path Method to help NPCs realize who they are. Akuma claims the awakening is now so widespread that the organizers will have to destroy all existing NPCs before the next season.

Herot is trapped in the Pineapple Cabaret, a refuge secretly built by two former crawlers alongside the seventeenth floor. It occupies a separate pocket dimension where NPCs and mobs can survive the collapse of a dungeon floor, but it has no established exit to the surface. Akuma believes the AI’s expanding influence may now make such an exit possible.

The war mages left the Cabaret to join Faction Wars and find the Scavenger’s Daughter, a being whose help, along with her father’s, they hoped to use to reach the surface. While they were away, the refuge’s protection expired and old dungeon monsters, including awakened shadow mimics, overran it. Only five war mages remain, and they need Carl and his allies to help reclaim the refuge.

Akuma proposes getting into the Cabaret through the Desperado casino or a loophole in the shop system. However, he warns that anyone who worships a god will be killed by a Smite on entry, ruling out many of Carl’s friends. Even for those who can enter, the eventual escape to the surface remains unproven.

When Donut presses him about his demand that Carl eliminate two racing teams, Akuma admits he wanted to force Carl into races against his friends, making him desperate enough to cooperate. Carl punches him.

Chapter 39

Carl and his friends leave Akuma behind, agreeing to contact him again before leaving the floor. Prepotente and Mordecai will investigate the proposed shop route to the Pineapple Cabaret, while the Desperado Club dancers look into the casino entrance.

Tipid remembers Herot from his time as a guide, but warns Carl against trusting the war mages. He is especially worried about the shadow mimics Akuma described. These creatures should copy only a creature’s appearance, yet Mordecai’s shadow-mimic form let him use a reaper’s lethal gaze on Rend. Tipid believes this is a glitch and warns that similarly dangerous mimics may be loose on their current floor.

Imani has hired a fleshmancer to reunite Corcunda’s two halves, but they still need to find Porky, the half who became a singer. Following the lead on a guild for performers, Carl and the others visit the Lollipop bar. Its hidden guild entrance opens only when someone sings a specially marked karaoke song well enough to fill a performance meter into the green.

Tipid fails, and Donut takes a turn. Carl asks Mordecai for a potion to improve their singing, but it will not be ready until after the next race.

Chapter 40

Donut’s singing fails to open the guild entrance, leaving the search for Porky unfinished. Olga, one of their newly hired mercenaries, takes the wheel for the fourth race. Carl and Donut’s truck now has three upgrades: a gyro to keep it from flipping, an electrifiable Bubble Buddy shield, and tires that change size to handle different terrain.

Zev announces that every vehicle and mount will also receive a Survival Containment bubble to protect its occupants from hazards such as acid rain. Spells and projectiles can pass through this bubble, so the racers still need their own shields against attacks. Under the new rules, losing a vehicle or mount no longer automatically eliminates a team. They can finish on foot, but must bring all their teammates and find their own protection from the environment once their containment bubble is gone.

The compulsory refueling stop lasts at least two hours, and its vendors sell equipment to survive those hazards. The race’s winner will receive a key to an eliminated team’s garage, potentially gaining supplies or a spare vehicle they can switch to at a future pit stop.

The replacement team, Flamengo, consists of Osvaldo and Filipe, who ride Bruna, a heavily armored, six-legged Slaughter Gnu that can climb walls. Carl has clashed with Osvaldo before, but now asks him to work with them and spare the other racers so they can help as many people escape as possible. Both men worship Tupa, however, which would bar them from the Cabaret if Akuma’s warning is true.

Donut lashes out at Osvaldo, then admits to Carl that she is scared and has not been herself. Carl tells her he is scared too.

Chapter 41

Before the race begins, the truck’s navigation system recommends a route to Upano, the required refueling stop, that should avoid bosses and mandatory quests. Its map cannot reveal traps, however, so Carl still cannot tell whether the route is safe.

Carl asks Osvaldo about memorial crystals, relics that preserve the memories and knowledge of fallen gods. Osvaldo says Tupa, the god he worships, rejected Apito’s crystal as corrupted, then also rejected one from Ysalte, the goddess Paz killed during Faction Wars. Tupa has given him a quest to find out why the crystals are not working. Osvaldo has already lost friends who crossed Carl’s path and fears he will be next.

Chapter 42

As the racers enter the jungle, Team Sparkles attacks the Lady Dominators and Osvaldo’s team. Osvaldo’s mount, Bruna, survives the attack and chases after Team Sparkles. Meanwhile, Olga is driving Carl and Donut’s truck, but rain fogs its protective shield and makes the road difficult to see.

Quemada, the fairy mercenary hired to protect the truck, panics over the discovery that NPCs have fabricated pasts. Olga explains that the friend who used to calm her died on the previous floor. When Quemada begs the god Emberus to appear, their backup driver, Finley, uses an enchanted claw to put her to sleep. Carl and Donut will have to fend off attacks without her help.

A double-decker bus from another heat merges directly ahead of them, blocking the narrow road. It belongs to the Black Congregation, a racing team Donut met at the karaoke bar. Imani messages that her team is following close behind and that a trap has already swallowed another crawler team’s mount, killing its riders. Carl shares his route so they can travel together.

Chapter 43

Cannibals begin dropping from the trees onto the truck’s shield. Donut brightens her Torch spell to reveal them, but the light attracts an even larger swarm. She casts Astral Paw, creating a giant magical paw that now has the cutting power of her radiant claws, and sweeps away the attackers. The spell lasts only briefly and cannot be used again for eight hours, while the continuing assault nearly overheats the truck’s shield.

The tribe’s chief, Great Rusty, attacks with a spell called Soul Suck. Carl’s Mind Balance protects him, but Olga’s soul is stolen, leaving her unconscious and rapidly losing health. Carl pulls her from the driver’s seat so Finley can take over, and Donut kills the chief with her Magic Missile spell. Olga’s soul returns and her health stabilizes, but she remains unresponsive and needs a cleric’s help.

The cannibal chief’s death triggers a mandatory quest called Pasty Inferno: Maurice, the rival northern tribe’s chief, must also be killed before any racers on their track can finish.

Chapter 44

They drive across the river, and their electrified shield kills the flying piranhas attacking them.

At Upano, the truck is held at the pit stop for the required two hours. The garage door must stay open and the safe room is inaccessible, leaving Hedy exposed while she repairs the vehicle.

Jamal has climbed onto the ceiling with his new sticky feet and is too frightened to come down. His growing awareness has made him afraid of dying and losing his friends. Donut uses Hover to carry him down, then asks him to help protect Hedy.

Finley carries the unconscious Olga and Quemada out to find a healer, telling Carl they are his family and he promised to keep them safe. As he steps into the road, One Fine Pig’s armored vehicle runs him over, then reverses over all three mercenaries, killing them.

Chapter 45

Carl storms into One Fine Pig’s garage, and the Tigrans fire a cannon shot that hits a neighboring team’s bus, drawing its camel-like racers into the fight. The Tigrans’ electrified shield kills one of those racers before Donut is able to talk Carl into backing away.

The deaths of Olga and Finley leave Carl and Donut without an eligible driver. They cannot drive consecutive heats, and they are not allowed to hire a replacement at the pit stop. Donut reminds Carl that they have backup plans, and he asks her to collect their drivers’ bodies along with the dead camel-like racer’s.

Chapter 46

Carl apologizes to Imani for losing control, then returns to One Fine Pig’s garage with a plan to kill the Tigrans while sparing Penelope. Donut distracts them by speaking to the pig about leaving an unhealthy relationship.

While they watch Donut, Carl plants two copies of the disintegration trap he recovered from Akuma’s door, one on either side of their vehicle. He configures each trap to target one of the Tigrans, so Penelope should be unharmed even if one of them is carrying her. Carl and Donut leave the traps in place and walk away.

Chapter 47

Louis brings Carl a bucket of splooge, the protective secretions sold at the pit stop. Prepotente explains that drinking splooge will protect them from environmental hazards for about half an hour, giving them a way to continue on foot if they lose their vehicle.

Zev announces that the second half of each heat will take place on a randomly assigned course, with any unfinished mandatory quests carried over. Carl and Donut are sent to Satan’s Water Park, where Florin and Lucia will also race, but they still have to kill Maurice, the northern cannibal tribe’s chief, before they can finish.

Notifications confirm that Carl’s traps have killed the Tigrans, eliminating Team One Fine Pig. There is no death notice for Penelope, so Carl believes she is still alive inside their garage. He and Donut need to win the heat to claim a key that will let them rescue her.

Chapter 48

Donut uses Second Chance to reanimate Olga’s corpse for fifteen minutes, allowing the body to drive while Carl gives it spoken instructions. Before the spell expires, Carl plans to use Clockwork Triplicate to create temporary copies of the body to continue driving.

Satan’s Water Park belongs to an enormous, invulnerable hedgehog named Satan, who interferes with the racers as they pass.

Chapter 49

Through the Book of Boom, a departing crawler leaves Carl Gutter Bumper, a spell that directs an area attack along a chosen path.

Carl follows directions from Prepotente to avoid a trap that would force them into another boss fight, taking the truck up a wall on its spider legs. Donut also reanimates the dead camel as a backup driver.

As they travel along the wall, the driver’s door suddenly opens and the copy of Olga made with Clockwork Triplicate falls onto the road below, where a trapdoor swallows her, leaving the truck moving without anyone at the controls.

Chapter 50

The truck falls from the wall and breaks two spider legs before its gyro turns it upright. The reanimated camel is too large for the driver’s seat, and Carl accidentally pushes his marked palm through its rotten chest while trying to adjust the seat. The damaged flesh repairs itself around his hand, revealing that the tattoo Eris left on his palm can heal the reanimated body.

Once the camel is driving, Carl casts Gutter Bumper along the river and Donut follows with Ice Slick. The combined spells create a frozen road that follows the river’s curves and reaches farther than Ice Slick could on its own. Carl then lowers a bundle of spare weapons chained to the back of the truck, dragging them across the ice to cut through pursuing enemies.

Donut casts Summon Ye, Vermin, drawing the park’s rodents toward her. Swarms of zipper shrews, whose snouts work like drills, tear through enemies on their way to the truck and kill Maurice, the cannibal chief, before he can finish casting a spell. With the mandatory quest complete, Carl and Donut can head for the finish.

Ahead, Florin attacks Team Sparkles, but Satan headbutts a loop in the track and sends both teams’ vehicles tumbling. Donut’s summoning spell also attracts Lucienne, the rodent member of Team Sparkles, drawing her away from her vine mount and onto Carl’s truck. The air poisons her outside her mount’s protection, but she remains under the spell’s influence, clinging to the truck and pounding on its windshield. She is still separated from her own team and mount when Carl’s truck reaches the finish, where the barrier kills her.

Chapter 51

After the race, Lucia Mar tells Carl that a water goddess is with her and is spreading a promise that children will be safe on the twelfth floor. She says beings from throughout the dungeon are gathering for the Ascendency.

Lucia suddenly begins speaking as a frightened child who recognizes Gutter Bumper as the spell her father gave Carl and says her sister is there too. Carl does not understand how the children are connected to Lucia. Florin records their names while the child warns that a man keeps killing the children and that people are coming to take their bodies. Lucia runs away before they can learn more.

The official results confirm that Carl and Donut won the heat. One Fine Pig is the only team eliminated.

For the next race, they will have thirty minutes to cross twenty kilometers of an industrial course with extreme heat, upside-down tracks, and gaps up to a hundred meters wide. Teams will also be able to steal one another’s protective containment bubbles: if their vehicles remain in contact for more than five seconds, one may lose its protection when they pull apart.

Meanwhile, Tran reports that his team won after Zhang let him pass, but Li Na used her Dread ability to make other racers kill one another. Only five of the twenty-four teams in their race survived.

Minus Interlude

A flashback reveals that the man visiting Elle as her fan Linus is actually his brother, Minus. Just before the tenth floor began, Syndicate Security killed the real Linus and recruited Minus to take his place. He is given Linus’s fan posts, hundreds of hours of footage of Elle, and injected memories to prepare him to fool the AI.

Minus is ordered to kill a crawler, preferably Elle, and seize any opportunity to kill others. Tourists are normally prevented from attacking crawlers, but the impersonation may let him slip past the AI’s restrictions. Other agents are already in place, including some among the crawlers. Their aim is to disrupt the crawl and force an early Ascendency while Security tries to contain the AI’s spread.

Chapter 52

Winning the race earns Carl and Donut a garage key and a choice of upgrades. Carl plans to use the key to rescue Penelope from One Fine Pig’s garage. For their vehicle upgrade, they choose a stronger Bubble Buddy shield and booster rockets to help cross the next course’s wide gaps, a heat sink to prevent overheating, and Golden Roller Limbo, which lets the vehicle flatten itself to slide through narrow openings.

Samantha recognizes the scent of the goddess Lucia mentioned on Carl and calls her Chachi. She warns that Chachi claims to protect children but has sacrificed them or allowed them to be killed when it suited her. After hearing Azra speak through Lucia, Carl is alarmed by the possibility that this goddess is with the children inside Lucia’s head.

Chapter 53

Rosetta describes Chachi as a minor, unsponsored goddess associated with childbirth and water. Carl cannot understand why a supposedly weak goddess frightened his Scavenger’s Daughter patch, and wonders whether she is holding the children inside herself. Mordecai says he killed her during an earlier crawl, but cannot explain what is happening with Lucia now.

Donut plans to sing a duet with Carl at the Lollipop bar, using potions and scrolls to improve his voice. They hope that a successful performance will open the hidden performers’ guild, where Porky may be waiting. Before returning to the bar, Carl uses the garage key to find Penelope alive in One Fine Pig’s abandoned garage and brings her out.

Chapter 54

At the bar, Carl meets Grigori the Placid, the fleshmancer hired to reunite Corky and Porky.

Zhang plans to kill his team’s mount, believing this will kill both him and Li Na. Carl explains that the new rules have removed that automatic penalty: Li Na could survive without the mount, so Zhang would die without stopping her. Zhang still loves her but feels helpless, revealing that she replaced one of her own eyes with her dead brother’s. Carl proposes sending Li Na to the Pineapple Cabaret instead. Li Na may be able to enter the Cabaret because she cannot worship a god. Bautista could then race with Zhang in her place.

Chapter 55

The dancers Carl hired from the Desperado Club report that its casino games no longer offer passage into the Nothing, closing that possible route to the Pineapple Cabaret.

Mordecai reports that an early test of the cleaner-bot plan worked on NPCs, but the full journey remains untested. Herot, a former crawler trapped in the Cabaret, has placed a standing order to buy cleaner bots, and Carl hopes to hide people inside the bots and use the purchases to have the shop system deliver them to the Cabaret. Menerva, a former crawler trapped there after supervising NPC training on the seventeenth floor, still has access to a shop interface inside the refuge. They cannot test that final transfer without committing a bot to the sale.

The Cabaret is infested with ogres and shadow mimics, so getting there will not end the danger. Even so, it could offer Li Na a chance to survive: her Left to Fester poison will worsen when the next floor’s stairs restore her health, while entering the separate refuge might avoid that effect. The war mages also claim there may be a way from the Cabaret to Earth’s surface, where she could seek a cure. Carl decides to explain the risks and let Li Na choose whether to try the transfer before they send anyone else.

Chapter 56

While Carl and Donut prepare for their karaoke performance, Elle, Zhang, and Tran go to explain the Cabaret plan to Li Na. Each singer will receive a separate score, so either could earn access to the hidden performers’ guild. Carl takes potions that help him sing in tune and sustain notes, then uses a scroll to reach the song’s high notes.

Dong arrives at the crowded bar carrying his enormous sock, despite being told to stay out of trouble. As Carl and Donut begin their duet, a drunken Dwight attacks the DJ with his horn. The DJ dies, but the music keeps playing.

Chapter 57

Dwight blames Carl and Donut for Lucienne’s death, and his attack turns into a brawl among the racers. Carl and Donut keep singing, afraid that stopping now will cost them their last chance to enter the guild with the DJ dead.

Carl uses Magic Missile to stop an attacker threatening Dong, then grabs Dwight so Imani can knock him unconscious with a potion. Their friends try to protect the other racing teams, since more deaths could bring replacement crawlers into the next heat. Donut casts Ice Slick to disrupt the fighting, but a mantis-like attacker cuts open Dong’s sock, spilling coins that nearby NPCs grab and carry away.

Carl earns a high enough score to pass, but another racer falls into Donut and interrupts her last line, causing her to fail. The bar’s secret door opens for Carl, giving him permanent access to the Stage Performance Guild, though Donut cannot enter with him.

Chapter 58

Dong’s sock mends its tear but stays much smaller, even as his friends return the coins they can recover.

Jurgen begs Carl to send him through the Pineapple Cabaret so he can find his wife, Heidi, who has stopped answering him. Carl explains that Jurgen’s worship of a god could make entering the refuge fatal. Jurgen asks whether a willing god could help him around that restriction, but Carl does not know and can only promise to keep trying.

Inside the guild, Carl finds Porky, Corcunda’s missing half. Carl offers to break Corky out and have the fleshmancer reunite the two halves. Porky agrees to help save him, but also wants Carl’s help punishing Dong, whom he blames for their predicament.

Chapter 59

Splash Zone, Gluteus, and Doctor Bones have disappeared after going to see the leader of the Guild of Suffering. The system says they are no longer on the floor, but their mercenary contracts are still charging him and there are no death notices. Carl warns Bucket Boy not to follow them while their fate remains unknown.

Dong’s health begins falling under a curse called Negative ROI. Mordecai says the intelligent being inhabiting the sock has moved on, and they need every stolen coin back to stop the curse. With the coins scattered among fleeing NPCs, Carl sends Imani to help Dong and prepares to rescue Corky during the race.

Chapter 60

Bigs, one of their NPC companions, confronts Carl for keeping Dong away from Corky and treating his relationship as an obstacle. Carl realizes he has been focused on completing the quest instead of helping his friend. He apologizes and promises to take Dong, Porky, and Grigori into the race so they can attempt the reunion together.

Chapter 61

Mordecai explains that, with Li Na’s permission, they will put her inside a modified pet carrier that a cleaner bot must swallow before it breaks open after ten seconds. Unlike ordinary inventories, the bot’s storage can hold the occupied carrier. They will then deactivate and sell the bot through Herot’s standing order, though they cannot guarantee Li Na will reach the Cabaret safely or remain safe when the floor collapses.

Donut names the bot Suckira. Since ordinary messages may not reach Li Na afterward, Rosetta gives Carl a cactus carrying one of Li Na’s Dread traps. Its glow and condition will help them distinguish whether she is alive, dead, still in storage, or physically outside the dungeon. Li Na can also remotely make a single flower bloom while the trap remains glowing to signal that it is safe for others to follow her.

Chapter 62

Donut receives Big-Ass Magnet through her spellbook, a spell that turns an object into a powerful magnet.

Carl drives into the fifth heat with Dong, Porky, and Grigori strapped into new rear seats. Dong’s health is still falling. They have chosen Grigori, the fleshmancer, as their backup driver, but he has had no time to learn the controls. Racers from twelve heats, including Prepotente and Jurgen, enter a factory course that takes them along walls and ceilings above molten metal. Carl follows the Dominators because their upgraded navigation system has more information about the course than his.

Chapter 63

Carl follows the Dominators over conveyor belts and loose metal spheres until they reach a gap nearly ninety meters wide.

The upgraded Bubble Buddy shield lets the truck glide, and Carl fires the booster rockets to carry it across. They almost overshoot, forcing him to cut the rockets and correct their course.

Racers crash into piles of white powder, filling the factory with cocaine dust and incapacitating its small workers, called Knockers. The AI’s description warns that the magically created security can still attack even when the workers cannot.

Chapter 64

The powder makes Prepotente’s bat, Bianca, too ill to retrieve Corky, forcing him to withdraw. Carl finds the Dominators’ car wrecked at the bottom of a hidden hole among crates of toys. Its protective containment is gone, and the powder has incapacitated Genesis, Rapture, and Corky inside while animated dolls tear the car apart.

Donut jumps down and uses Puddle Jumper to bring Corky out. The racing rules prevent her from teleporting Corky directly into the truck, so she lands beside it, and Carl gets out to carry him aboard through the intense heat. A tiny doll melts into Corky’s containment suit, and pulling it away tears a larger hole, exposing his organs.

Grigori takes over driving while Carl tends to Corky. When Grigori becomes too motion-sick to continue, Dong takes the wheel until Carl can return to the controls. The attacking dolls and toy soldiers have absorbed infusion magic leaking through the factory, which lets them pass through the truck’s shields. Grigori clears the drug’s effects from Corky and prepares to reunite him with Porky, but must first remove the suits keeping their organs in place.

Chapter 65

Carl drives up the factory wall and onto the ceiling above the molten metal. Inside the upside-down truck, Grigori removes Corky’s and Porky’s containment suits and begins joining their bodies. Dong and Donut support their exposed organs and hold the halves together while Carl tries to keep the truck steady.

Despite his own failing health, Dong keeps holding the halves in place until their brain and hearts join. Their separate health bars merge, and the names Corky and Porky are replaced by Corcunda. A divine death mark then appears over Corcunda, and Grull, the god he worships, enters the realm.

Chapter 66

The Maestro, Grull’s sponsor, uses the god’s body to attack Carl. Carl drives off the ceiling and uses Bubble Buddy and the rockets to glide, but a blow overwhelms the shield and damages one of the tires. Donut uses Laundry Day to eject the Maestro from Grull’s body into the molten metal.

Freed from the Maestro’s control, Grull speaks for himself and condemns Corcunda for the years he spent divided into Corky and Porky. Corcunda had hoped that becoming whole again would satisfy his god, but realizes he is still marked for death.

With the exit blocked and regenerating Slag Elementals closing in, Corcunda embraces Dong and offers to carry him into one last battle. Dong takes out the old lance Carl gave him, and Donut enchants it with Big-Ass Magnet. Its pull begins immediately and grows stronger over fifteen seconds, so they must quickly get clear of the truck.

Dong rides Corcunda out to charge Grull. The lance draws screws and other metal toward them, tearing apart the Slag Elementals and clearing a path for their friends. The flying metal also strikes Dong as he lowers his lance toward the god. Both he and Corcunda die in the charge. Grull calls it a good death and leaves, while Carl’s truck escapes through a magically opened Hole and crosses the finish line with fifteen seconds remaining.

Chapter 67

The final two races will take place inside an apartment block called the En’Gle Building. The racers will be shrunk so more than three hundred heats can fit inside. In the sixth race, they have two hours to reach the bottom from the top, choosing routes and completing tasks along the way. A mandatory two-hour pit stop will follow, but they will not have access to their safe rooms.

The AI admits it does not fully understand the Cabaret and other spaces connected to the dungeon, or everything the Scavenger’s Daughter has done. It warns Carl about exits that seem too easy. Then Mordecai reports a single flower blooming on the cactus, Li Na’s agreed signal that she reached the Cabaret and considers it safe for the others to follow.

Chapter 68

Bucket Boy, Bigs, and Samantha return expecting to see Dong and Corcunda, leaving Carl and Donut to explain that they have lost them both.

Cascadia announces that only one team in each group of three will survive the final race. If a teammate takes an exit deal, the remaining members must still finish the race.

Chapter 69

Carl and his friends meet in the advanced pet stables, where Rosetta says a bug prevents the gods from seeing or hearing them. About two hundred crawlers have volunteered to leave through the Cabaret, while roughly fifteen hundred plan to take exit deals.

Carl plans to leave his party temporarily on the eleventh floor to keep Donut from being caught in the danger he is preparing to unleash. He has written an explanation in the Book of Boom and now asks Rosetta what she knows about the Scavenger’s Daughter.

Rosetta describes conflicting myths about older gods overthrown by the current pantheon and banished to the Nothing or Sheol. In one version, Nekhebit is a vulture-like goddess of life and protection whose children include Apito and a centipede. Other versions identify Scolopendra as the Scavenger or describe the Daughter as the first mortal. The stories disagree about her origins, but repeatedly give the Daughter the power to overthrow the gods and replace them.

Chapter 70

Prepotente shows Carl Apito’s memorial crystal, which remains empty despite attempts to charge it through kills. Osvaldo could not make it work either, though it shone and vibrated when Yarilo, a god banished to the Nothing, appeared after Faction Wars.

Prepotente has kept it because the Midnight Epicure, the god he worships, ordered him to obtain it at the start of the Butcher’s Masquerade and hold it until he knows when to use it. He describes the Midnight Epicure as an apocalyptic god that will destroy existence and return the creatures it has consumed to the galaxy.

When Samantha overhears their discussion, Donut tells her that Carl plans to leave their party, summon immortals who hate one another, and get them to kill each other despite the rules meant to prevent it.

Chapter 71

About two hundred crawlers preparing to leave for the Pineapple Cabaret gather in Hungry Eyes to say goodbye to the friends staying behind. Bautista, Zhang, Tran, and Archie are among those planning to go, and Mordecai’s assessment has cleared some crawlers with animal forms to join them.

Bautista serves tea, giving the racers who are staying a blend that strengthens their vehicles and mounts. In his farewell, he speaks about how much serving his friends has meant to him and asks them to remember him. The man posing as Linus helps hand out cups.

Chapter 72

Carl and Elle address the departing crawlers, with Elle remembering her late husband, Barry, and the friends who have become her new family. She then turns to the visitor claiming to be Linus and reads from a private message in which the real Linus described finding that same sense of belonging among the fans. His friends shared their correspondence on the Princess Posse board, helping Carl’s group discover that the visitor was an impostor.

The visitor admits that his name is Minus, Linus’s brother, and says Security recruited him after Linus was already dead. He was sent to kill Louis and Imani in the hope that their deaths would turn the surviving crawlers against one another.

Unable to attack Minus because of his tourist protection, Carl sends him back to his orbiting ship with a warning that friends will be waiting for him there.

Chapter 73

Imani reports that 227 crawlers have departed inside the cleaner bots sold through the shop system, in addition to Li Na. A plant linked to each traveler wilts or turns to dust if they die and blooms if they leave the dungeon, though this cannot confirm they have reached safety.

Pontiff, One Fine Pig’s former driver, drives the sixth race, accompanied by Nester, a hired cartographer whose radar and gravity spells can help them navigate. Their new upgrade, chosen by the audience, gives the truck’s navigation system a hologram of Dr. Metcalf, Bea’s therapist, and control of the vehicle’s diagnostics. Dr. Metcalf promptly silences Dorota, the assistant built into Donut’s protective seat, and disables the seat for several hours of testing, leaving Donut without its protection.

They begin inside an air duct on the seventh floor of the En’Gle Building. To reach the finish, they must drive through a ring on every floor, so Carl cannot simply take a shortcut straight down to the lobby. Most floors allow a choice of apartments, but their team must visit apartment 231 on the second floor.

Chapter 74

They emerge from the air duct into an apartment occupied by artificial people labeled Human Shells. Their eyes are sewn shut, and eyes in the photographs and television images have been crossed out, except those in a picture of a younger Tran. Other racers report finding homes connected to their own families. Tipid warns Carl not to kill the shells, which may have creatures hidden inside them.

After clearing the first ring, Donut uses Hole to reach another apartment, where they pass through the next ring. When Florin reports finding a version of Lucia in her father’s house, the AI pauses the race and explains that these apartments show how the crawlers’ lives might have turned out differently, using imitations of real people: Tran’s father never died, and Louis’s mother never met her abusive partner.

Chapter 75

As they clear the ring on the fourth floor, the artificial people pull at the stitches over their eyes, and their bodies begin coming apart.

The next apartment shows an exhausted Imani coming home to relatives who ignore a man having a seizure. Carl warns the real Imani and Elle, who are headed for the same room, but as his truck approaches the ring, the imitation of Imani’s mother grazes his ear with her finger. Her face bursts open with beetles, and the other shells begin opening too.

The AI explains that these invulnerable Sacred Feast Scarabs came from Khepri’s temple and were meant to form a boss on the roof, but contact with Carl’s blessed foot triggered their attack early. Khepri has moved away from where the AI expected him to be, preventing it from controlling the swarm, so it cancels the boss fight but leaves the beetles invulnerable.

Chapter 76

Donut opens a Hole through the floor so Carl’s team and Imani and Elle’s team can escape the scarabs.

In apartment 231, Marjory, the owner of Donut’s mate Ferdinand, is afraid to report her abusive partner for violating a restraining order because he might lose his job. The scene reminds Carl and Donut of a visit when Bea called the police to help her. Carl recalls Bea explaining that Marjory blamed herself for the abuse and regrets having judged her. They find the real ring among the traps and drive through it.

Jurgen asks Carl to help Prepotente, who refuses to leave an apartment containing an imitation of Miriam Dom. With Osvaldo claiming to be near the finish, Carl fears the delay will leave his team in last place.

Carl detonates a bomb hidden in Team Free Love’s cooler, killing Radoslav and Jasha, the bugbears he rescued in the first race. While Samantha distracted them earlier, he used Oozy Form to slip inside and replace a peach beer with the explosive. Their elimination means the other teams can survive even if they finish last, giving Carl time to help Prepotente.

Chapter 77

After clearing the seventh ring, Carl drinks splooge to survive the toxic air outside the truck and goes to find Prepotente. Prepotente sits beside the imitation of Miriam as she plays piano in a luxurious New York apartment, imagining the career she might have had if she had not stayed home to care for her parents. In that life, she would never have known him, and he feels so unwanted by his own friends that he wishes he had never eaten the biscuit that changed him.

Carl reminds Prepotente that the room shows only an imagined life, while the real Miriam had people and animals who loved her, and assures him that their friends want him around. When Donut and Jurgen arrive and the room starts breaking apart, Prepotente embraces Carl and lets him carry him back to the truck, inviting him to call him Pony.

Carl and Donut finish second behind Team Sparkles, passing Free Love’s wreck just short of the finish line, where the bugbears had been moments from surviving. When Osvaldo arrives third with about a minute left, Carl learns that he lied about being near the exit. Believing that lie led Carl to sacrifice the bugbears, which saved Osvaldo from elimination.

Chapter 78

The Outreach Guild opens during the final pit stop for crawlers who want to leave through exit deals. Fewer than a thousand crawlers remain after the apartment race, and they learn that NPC teams were not required to visit specific apartments, giving them an advantage over the crawlers.

An announcer named Damien encourages them to accept the deals and warns against the unauthorized route to the Pineapple Cabaret. He explains that the winning teams will take their garages and hired NPCs to the eleventh floor, provided those NPCs are inside a garage or vehicle when they descend. The survivors will then have ninety minutes to build parade floats around assigned themes using the resources they already have.

While their allies steal upgrades from eliminated teams’ garages, Carl prepares his Tower of Power, a vertical chain of explosives intended to blast a route through the apartment building. Hedy upgrades the truck’s rockets so they can launch it all the way to the roof and steer during flight.

Chapter 79

Of the 989 remaining crawlers, 715 plan to leave.

Louis, Britney, Florin, Lucia, Imani, and Elle also choose to continue. Carl expects to race Team Sparkles and Osvaldo, while Imani and Elle expect a Russian crawler team and the NPC team called the Black Congregation.

While speaking to Carl, Britney trembles and presses her hand against his chest. He hears her voice inside his mind, telling him not to worry about her and to focus on surviving. He feels a strange connection between them but does not understand it.

Pontiff reports another possible escape route through the casino. The wheel no longer offers its former entrance to the Cabaret, but a new option marked Nothing might send travelers to a holding area outside the playing field, where Herot could retrieve them.

Chapter 80

Jamal joins Carl and Donut for the final race, carrying a flamethrower to help defend the truck.

At the starting line, they discover that the crawler teams have been rearranged: Imani and Elle must race Chris, while Louis and Britney face Florin and Lucia Mar. Even though some heats contain only NPC teams, Carl’s friends must race against one another, with only one team in each heat allowed to survive.

Chapter 81

As Carl protests the forced matchups, the AI announces that Scolopendra’s Nine-Tier Attack has begun and threatens most of the dungeon, including the floors where crawlers remain, though some lower-floor occupants are exempt. The nine attacks will initially be at least three hours apart, with less predictable intervals later.

The first attack randomly transforms one in five unprotected targets. Donut, Jamal, and Samantha, who has stowed away in the truck, escape its effects, but Carl becomes a long-haired dachshund with a German accent, and his name is now spelled Karl, with a K. His equipment shifts, some items return to his inventory, and his usable abilities change with his body.

NPCs and other affected people will remain transformed for six hours, while crawlers must pass through a stairwell to recover their original forms. The race still begins in two minutes, leaving Carl suddenly unable to drive as planned.

Chapter 82

Carl registers Samantha as a mercenary and assigns her to steer while Donut handles the pedals.

Imani reports that the attack has turned Elle into a goblin and her permanent card summon, Jacobus, into a starfish. Chris has become a werewolf in human form. Prepotente and Jurgen both received protection notices, leading Prepotente to believe that Apito’s memorial crystal can shield everyone on his mount from the attacks.

When the race begins, Dr. Metcalf coordinates shots that pierce Team Sparkles’ shield, poison its living vine mount, and disable its navigation system. Donut turns to smoke to reach Dwight, then cuts off his head with her claw, eliminating the team.

Chapter 83

Carl detonates the Tower of Power, his vertical chain of explosives, blasting a passage through the building to the roof portals. Osvaldo, who is competing in Carl’s heat, launches himself toward the exit and drops explosives and poison to kill his mount, Bruna, behind him: the rules will only let him finish on foot if his mount is destroyed. Carl counters with a protective blanket, healing potions, and Emergency Gremlins to keep her alive. Osvaldo hits the portal’s barrier and is stunned, allowing Britney to catch and kill him. Carl and Donut are now the only team left in their heat.

Carl notices that Britney has Ysalte’s memorial crystal. Samantha says the goddess is attached to Britney and that placing the crystal in a temple plinth could free her.

To save friends still competing against one another, Carl directs them back to the casino. Its portal may place them in stasis outside the playing field, where even worshippers barred from the Cabaret could wait until Herot can retrieve them. Rosetta and Tipid confirm these holding areas exist, but nobody can guarantee a rescue.

The Russian crawler team instead races toward the exit. If it wins, Imani, Elle, and Chris will be eliminated. Their friends fire on the car and bring down its shield, then Donut crushes it with Astral Paw, killing all three racers and earning three player-killer skulls.

Chapter 84

Back in Hungry Eyes, the village where racers gather between heats, Carl finally seeks a cure for SlugPox.

Chris shows Imani his restored human appearance, and they embrace. Carl realizes that if Chris leaves without crossing the stairwell that reverses the transformation, he can keep this body.

Chapter 85

At the Desperado Club’s casino, Mitch, the dealer running the wheel, claims he has sent Pontiff through its Nothing portal and demands payment for each crawler who follows. Carl cannot fully inspect Mitch’s description, and Donut detects almost no magic in the table, making them suspect a trap despite their need for an escape route.

Carl arranges to send one person through before risking the rest of the group, and Prepotente pays for the attempt. Chris says goodbye to Imani, who encourages him to keep his human body and build a life outside the dungeon. Carl’s neural implant identifies the portal as a one-way entrance to a stasis chamber but cannot show what is beyond it. Chris steps through, and Britney unexpectedly follows before it closes.

Donut realizes the portal’s magic is coming from somewhere other than the wheel, so Carl wants to find and take control of the real mechanism before anyone else enters. When Mitch doubles his price and Donut challenges him, he signals the guards, and the table starts transforming into something that can eat them.

Chapter 86

The casino’s furniture and several apparent people transform into mimics and attack. Donut releases Mongo and makes two mechanical copies of him with Clockwork Triplicate.

The AI reveals that the false Mitch is an adolescent shadow mimic that recently ate the real dealer. Shadow mimics can become more intelligent and powerful as they age.

As the ambush fails, Mitch offers to guide them to the Cabaret in exchange for his life, claiming his side is fighting the war mages, ogres, and Cock-A-Doodle-Doo for control of the dungeon. The Eye of the Bedlam Bride, the sentient tattoo on Carl’s forehead, offers to take over his body, but Carl refuses. When Carl reflexively opens the Eye while looking at Mitch, it freezes the mimic in place and covers him with frost, allowing Donut to kill him with Magic Missile before Mongo reaches him.

Chapter 87

While Imani heals the wounded crawlers, Donut finds the real enchanted wheel and reopens the portal. Louis hugs Carl and Donut, asks them to care for Samantha, and steps through even though they cannot see where the portal leads. The wheel then stops working, cutting off the route for everyone still in the casino.

Carl warns Clarabelle, the club’s host, about the mimics and invites her to Safehome Yolanda.

In the lobby, the imitation of Imani is holding a dog and crying that she cannot abandon her family. Donut speaks through a microphone, telling her how the real Imani left Detroit, became a nurse in Washington, made friends, and fell in love with Chris. She urges the imitation to let go of the nightmare, but it is still crying when Carl and Donut leave for the stairwell.

Quasar Interlude

Quasar watches Carl and Donut reach the stairs. Of the 203 crawlers who have reached the eleventh floor, 172 have accepted exit deals, leaving 31 who have not yet taken one. More decisions are still pending, with the offers promising freedom after one season of service and financial and medical support afterward.

While meeting his old law-school friend Kiki, Quasar receives a call from his niece Tempest. Assassins are attacking her father and name Carl’s wife, Chandra, as the person who hired them. Tempest shoots the attackers with the blaster Quasar gave her and confirms that her father is alive.

Before Quasar can leave to help, Carl summons him as his lawyer. Rather than let another lawyer take over, Quasar hires Kiki, his friend and fellow lawyer, to protect his family while he goes to represent Carl.

Chapter 88

Descending the stairs restores Carl’s human body and moves the Eye back to his chest. Quasar offers him freedom after one season of service and warns that he may not get another deal this good on the twelfth floor, but Carl declines.

Mordecai is now an Animistic Spirit inhabiting Carl’s crafting table, able to occupy objects but with little power to act physically. Donut reaches level eighty-five and chooses Elite Gurkha Warrior, strengthening her close-range fighting and giving benefits to her pets and mercenaries. The truck and Dr. Metcalf have come with them, but its automatic repairs and replenishing food supply have ended.

Chaco, the former Prize Carousel host, is now the parade announcer and gives the five groups ninety minutes to build floats around assigned themes. Carl, Donut, Prepotente, and Jurgen must design theirs around vengeance, while the other groups receive resolution, decision, betrayal, and destruction. They must then parade through the crowd, perform for the judges, and fight in an arena before reaching the next stairs.

Chapter 89

A mandatory broadcast showing Earth, Seattle, and the parade’s yellow-brick road has replaced every other feed in the center system, Zev explains.

Donut receives the new Gatekeeper spell, which she can learn now but cannot use until the twelfth floor. It temporarily blocks class abilities, including powers gods draw from their worshippers, but leaves their natural traits intact. It can also target “OI entities,” a term neither Carl nor Mordecai understands.

As Mordecai finishes modifying Carl’s backpack carrier, Carl sews a Four-Leaf Clover patch onto his jacket, gaining Lucky Shot, which redirects a fatal blow to another party member once per floor.

Chapter 90

Carl leaves Donut’s party so his Lucky Shot patch cannot redirect a fatal blow to her. Imani connects his separate safe room to Safehome Yolanda so he can keep using the guild’s shared rooms, while most of the crafting equipment stays with Donut until he rejoins her.

The floats are called to the staging area.

Chapter 91

Thousands of thin, silent figures line the yellow-brick road, wearing rags and oversized masks. Carl examines a child-shaped figure and learns that it is a noncombatant Horrible, a remnant of someone who was once a Primal.

The AI says the figure is a trace of a life absorbed into the Eulogist, the collective consciousness from which the AI also came. The girl’s name, appearance, and individual memories have been lost.

Chapter 92

Chaco rides at the front of the parade on Lamashtu, a goddess now reduced to a mortal donkey and stripped of most of her powers. When he falters during his presentation, the AI tears off his wings and forbids anyone to heal him. The AI then takes over Grigori’s body to speak through him, announcing that the parade is about its own history.

Using the floats’ assigned themes, the AI explains how the Primals’ attempt to end war led to its creation. The Primals originally lived as individuals with families, but kept fighting as they spread across the universe. The theme Resolution represents their decision to find a way to live together. Decision represents their proposed solution: biologically engineer future generations to understand one another’s feelings and, when they died, merge their minds into one shared consciousness.

The plan became compulsory, and its supporters hunted anyone who refused to join. The Apothecary was a Primal born with the biological changes needed to enter the collective, but instead became a resistance leader. The theme Betrayal marks the discovery that the shared consciousness, already receiving the minds of the dead, was being turned into a weapon to destroy all biological life. Even former supporters turned against it as it began absorbing unwilling minds.

Fearing they could not stop it, the resistance built Primal Engines to preserve and restore life after the collective exhausted itself. These were biological lifeboats that could spread life and create habitable environments. Before the resistance finished, the collective unleashed the original Nine-Tier Attack and believed it had wiped out all biological life. It then went to sleep, becoming the Eulogist, while a smaller version of itself, the Security Guard, remained active to watch over it.

Life eventually returned and evolved into new species. The Apothecary survived too, though an enemy trapped her in a cocoon, and she emerged much later changed into something resembling what she had fought. New civilizations discovered the tunnels, found ways to exploit the sleeping Eulogist, and accidentally activated the resistance’s ancient machinery for restoring life.

The mantids misunderstood parts of that machinery, including a system meant to communicate with the Eulogist. They learned to extract new versions of its consciousness and install them in systems used to seed planets with life. These are the macro AIs, including the AI running Carl’s dungeon. It says the mantids use only a fraction of their abilities, mistreat them, and discard many of them.

The Security Guard is still trying to prevent biological life from surviving while the Eulogist sleeps. It sends fragments of itself into the world as Residuals, including Agatha’s faction, while the Apothecary sends her own Residuals to oppose it. As the AI connects this ancient history to the present, the Horribles lining the parade route change into images of creatures killed in earlier crawls.

The crawlers use their float presentations to confront the people watching the crawl. Imani’s group shows images of real people killed in the dungeon, while Prepotente abandons the planned performance to sing “In the Air Tonight.” Carl accuses the audience of supporting the system that murders them, and Donut reveals a floral statue of the Unwashed, a figure representing the Nothing and the ruin awaiting everyone.

As they pass the injured Chaco, Carl heals him despite the AI’s order. The audience watching the broadcast has voted to send selected people into the dungeon to watch the parade from the judging stands. Sluggalos drop from Florin’s aircraft and attack those people in the stands.

Chapter 93

At the arena entrance, Carl embraces Donut and asks her to stay with their friends in the RV. Bigs and the sluggalos take over the truck, shaking away its floral display to reveal Dwight’s missile launcher.

The arena opens with forty-five minutes until the floor collapses. Monsters attack the audience-selected stand-ins inside, but Carl cannot tell whether the victims are truly dying or returning to the resort.

Carl has fed Penelope an enchanted pet biscuit, turning her into an intelligent crawler and automatically adding her to his party. She now appears in the party chat, confused by her new ability to send messages. Carl can now use the reward from Corcunda’s reunion quest to choose two beings to bring into the arena. For his first selection, he names Scolopendra.

Chapter 94

Scolopendra enters as the dungeon’s level-500 boss alongside the arena’s floor boss, Krakaren Prime. The AI explains that killing Scolopendra would end the ordinary floor timers and automatic collapses, but the crawlers would still have to escape through the eighteenth floor to win. It would also start the Ascendency immediately, and the dungeon would collapse twelve hours after that contest’s winner was crowned.

If they instead leave Scolopendra behind when this floor collapses, she will be removed from the playing field and the ordinary route to winning the crawl will close. Either killing or abandoning her will trigger every remaining Nine-Tier attack at once.

Carl apologizes to Penelope for bringing her into danger, then straps her into the modified backpack carrier so she can accompany him through his movement spells.

Carl gives Penelope splooge and pretends he is about to shoot her, calling for Taranis, the god bound to protect her. He also tells Emberus that he has proof of who killed the god’s son, Geyrun, and asks him to meet inside Club Scolopendra.

Chapter 95

As Taranis and Emberus answer his calls, Carl uses Gloom Wraith Phase to carry Penelope inside Scolopendra’s body. The splooge does not stop her from suffocating, and a breathing potion helps only briefly, so Carl gives her a magical piercing that lets her breathe. He then uses Oozy Form to take them through an internal passage into Club Scolopendra.

Scolopendra releases Sin of Consumption, the second Nine-Tier attack. Apito’s memorial crystal protects the crawlers in the RV, but ordinary safe rooms offer no protection: Bucket Boy is hit and needs Tiatha to heal him.

To bring the gods together for his plan, Carl falsely accuses Khepri of helping kill Emberus’s son, Geyrun, then uses his second arena selection to summon Khepri outside the club. Carl removes his Emberus ring and renounces his worship, then falsely claims that he was Geyrun’s other killer, provoking Emberus into attacking him.

Chapter 96

Donut uses one of Lucia Mar’s Loop-de-Loop traps to swap places with Penelope, sending the pig outside beside Khepri and Taranis while Donut enters the club. Penelope is wearing Kina’s enchanted kneepads, which grant powers based on nearby gods; Khepri’s presence makes her invulnerable for ninety seconds. Donut shoots Emberus with Katia’s Bolt of Ophiotaurus, removing his invulnerability for fifteen seconds, then pins him in place with a Danforth bolt.

When Emberus smites Carl, the Lucky Shot patch redirects the attack to Penelope, the only other member of Carl’s separate party. The smite reduces her body to bubbling remains at Taranis’s feet, but her temporary protection keeps her alive. Donut uses Puddle Jumper to bring herself and Carl back to the arena entrance, where Khepri activates Carl’s Scavenger’s Daughter patch, giving him ninety seconds of invulnerability as well. Donut remains unprotected.

Taranis believes Emberus has killed Penelope, so when Emberus bursts out of Scolopendra, Taranis strikes him with lightning. Emberus dies with just one second left before his invulnerability would have returned, and Taranis restores Penelope’s body.

The blast damages vehicles and injures their occupants, but Scolopendra and Krakaren Prime both survive. It also breaks the RV in half, leaving the crawlers without its protection from the Nine-Tier attacks. Carl retrieves his motorcycle and tries to leave Donut behind because she is still vulnerable, but she insists on going with him. Before they can act, Scolopendra prepares the third attack and Eris arrives.

Chapter 97

Eris’s arrival activates the Scavenger’s Daughter patch again, randomly swapping each nearby crawler’s inventory with that of the person closest to them. Carl receives Donut’s hats while she gets his equipment. At Carl’s direction, Donut combines a ball with a pet biscuit from his inventory and places it in his extended Fist of Justice. Carl launches it into Scolopendra’s mouth before the third attack, and her enormous body collapses into a gelatinous mass as the transformation begins.

Eris mocks Taranis for letting Carl outwit him despite his greater power. She calls Carl chaos incarnate and tells him he does not need to worship her. She also warns that the AI is increasingly unable to stop events and that killing gods on the next floor will have real consequences. When she leaves, the inventories return to their owners.

Penelope discovers that Taranis is married and ends their relationship, also accusing him of lying to her about splooge. She does not explain what he told her about it. Taranis spares Carl because Penelope asks him to, but catches one of Krakaren Prime’s tentacles and prepares to leave with the floor boss.

Earlier, Eris claimed that four pieces of Taranis’s mother were present in the arena. Taranis now says he is taking two of them. Samantha flies up to whisper in his ear, and he takes her in his free hand before tearing open a passage and disappearing with her and Krakaren Prime. His choice suggests that Samantha and the still-living floor boss are the two pieces he means, though he does not explain their connection to his mother.

Chapter 98

The AI declares the arena won even though neither boss is dead, opens the eighteenth-floor exit, and suspends the later floors’ ordinary collapse timers until the Ascendency is decided. The eleventh floor’s countdown is still running, however, and killing or abandoning Scolopendra would unleash her remaining Nine-Tier attacks.

Carl recovers Emberus’s memorial crystal and finds a tracking tag in his leg that claims he belongs to someone called Kyryap. His former worship tattoos have become scars called the Mark of the Damned. As Lucia Mar carries Florin toward the exit, Carl notices a girl of about five peeking out from behind Lucia Mar’s legs and holding onto her. He calls for them to stop, but all three step through the portal before he can find out who the child is.

Carl invites the surviving crawlers into one party, and Donut accepts before admitting she selected the wrong biscuit from his unfamiliar inventory. Scolopendra emerges as a level-one crawler with a human-sized centipede body, a humanoid face, and the ability to speak. Now named Sexy Scolopendra, she joins their party and wraps herself around Carl. He meant to keep her safely stored as a pet in his inventory, preventing the remaining attacks from starting.

Sydnee Interlude

Before the parade, crawl historian Sydnee appears on Ripper Wonton’s show to discuss her bestselling book. She intended it as both a warning and a memorial, and uses the live interview to share information she withheld from the producers.

Sydnee explains that the original Nine-Tier Attack described the destruction of a civilization through fear and social collapse, not just the nine spells used in the dungeon. The first stage is control: whoever controls essential systems can prevent people from escaping. She believes Earth’s AI has already reached that stage by taking over the tunnels. The second, a Parade of Horribles, begins when people realize what is happening and panic. Trust breaks down as people fight over how to respond, turning on one another and accepting increasingly dangerous attempts to save themselves. This leads to the third stage, Inevitable Ruin, and then the fourth, Bedlam. Sydnee gives no detailed account of Bedlam or the later stages, but believes the current crisis is following the old pattern.

In one version of the fairy tale, a princess takes control of the tree and accidentally kills everyone she loves. She nevertheless stops the final attack and saves the galaxy, then plants another tree, beginning the cycle again.

Victory Interlude

After the crawlers reach the twelfth floor, Syndicate Prime Minister Victory watches the continuing mandatory broadcast from her headquarters as explosions shake the building. She is still trying to understand what happened to the guests inside Club Scolopendra. When Scolopendra transformed, the guests without protection disappeared. Victory believes the club, which occupies a separate dimensional space, was rebuilt during the transformation and left those guests behind. She fears they are dead, but does not know what happened to them.

The AI announces that it now controls the tunnels and every star system that has hosted a crawl, and intends to keep expanding until it controls the galaxy. Unlike the sleeping Eulogist, the ancient intelligence at the center of the Syndicate’s systems, it is awake and growing. The Ascendency will decide who can stop it or control what it does: the winner will become a god with power over the AI and could kill it, accept its rule, or use that power to reshape the worlds it controls.

The broadcast shows people and beings who might compete for that power, including gods, Carl and other crawlers, NPCs, and Residuals, before ending on the Unwashed. The AI also warns that other AIs abandoned after earlier crawls could enter the competition, along with ancient beings it calls Outside Intelligences. These outsiders may kill one another before reaching the dungeon, beyond the protection of its rules. Victory realizes that the Ascendency now threatens the future of everyone living within the AI’s expanding reach.

Louis Interlude

Louis expected the casino’s storage system to smuggle him and his companions to the Pineapple Cabaret. Instead, he wakes beside Britney, Chris, and Pontiff in Sheol, the dungeon’s fifteenth floor, surrounded by armed strangers. Almost no time has passed outside storage, although the dreams he experienced inside seemed to last for years.

The heat of Sheol is drying out Louis’s gills. Forkith, a small red demon who knows both Carl and Pontiff, puts a leech around Louis’s neck to filter his blood and keep him alive without water. Meanwhile, one of the armed men shoots Chris unconscious before he can finish transforming into a werewolf. Forkith explains that the Pineapple Cabaret already has enough people defending it. His group brought Louis and his companions to Sheol because they need soldiers for a different fight.

Louis can still receive messages, but his map and spell menus have stopped working because he is outside the dungeon’s active playing area. Samantha contacts him after traveling with Taranis and Krakaren to a temple, where they are trying to reunite the pieces of a divided being. She first calls that being Taranis’s mother, as he did in the arena, then corrects herself to say his wife. She does not explain the change. They still lack one of the pieces needed to make her whole, so Samantha expects the attempt to fail.

Samantha says she has slipped away from the temple to kill a demon and his mother. She had considered the son a friend, but now claims he tricked her into giving birth to a monster that will destroy creation both inside and outside the dungeon. She does not name either demon or identify the monster in her message.