Chapter 31

Carl and his team prepare to send train carts through portals to the abyss to rescue trapped crawlers, then face an unexpected threat when a stage-three DT monster they kill explodes into thousands of parasitic Krakaren larvae. Meanwhile, a distant explosion suggests another crawler team has detonated the soul crystal at a generator site.

Carl, Donut, and Katia outfit six rapid-response carts with severed hands as portal anchors and audio alarm traps set to billboard hits. They send the first cart through a portal to the abyss to test the delay mechanism; it works, and Carl confirms via screenshot that it arrived. He then sends three more carts through to different trainyard instances where other crawlers are positioned. Carl learns via message from Elle that the four-armed cobra lady they seek is not among the survivors at station 36. Carl attaches explosives to the Vermillion train and sends it backward down the track to collide with approaching stage-three DT monsters and blister ghouls, scoring a kill and reaching level 35. The explosion damages hearing but seals off a tunnel line. A distant explosion kills four crawlers—Carl deduces they've detonated the soul crystal at a generator site attempting to stop the ghoul spawn. He sends Elle and a team to investigate via station 60. Carl then uses one of the rapid-response carts as a defensive barrier against approaching blister ghouls, who mindlessly fall into the abyss portal. Over the following hours, the team grinds against level-20 ghouls for practice. They eventually confront a stage-three DT monster—originally a Razor Fox—which appears as a hippo-sized monstrosity with tentacles, transparent jelly-like skin, and a round mouth of teeth. During the battle, Katia transforms into a sentinel gun with a tripod form and fires bolts while Carl launches metal projectiles into the creature's mouth. The monster suddenly explodes, but the explosion is not a kill—instead, thousands of tiny Krakaren larvae spawn from the corpse, revealed to be parasitic clones of an ancient creature seeking to reproduce. Carl burns them with moonshine and a torch. A dead crawler's message warns that millions of Krakaren have appeared at station 24, far exceeding the grub infestation.