Chapter 68

Carl realizes the demons are attempting to escape back to the 15th floor of the dungeon (Sheol) and theorizes that Sister Ines is too weak to fully control the possessed snake demon, who is casting a portal spell. After discovering that full-powered demons require two souls to return home and that the zombie demon portals kill crawlers by exploding them, Carl devises a plan to use the infected Sluggalos locked in the training arcade to eliminate the demons around the church. He also begins to suspect that the dungeon is compensating for excess crawler survival by making the floor progressively deadlier.

Carl, Donut, and Samantha flee toward the church while dodging zombie fish and possessed creatures. They discuss how Sister Ines and other rival teams have been threatening to destroy the magical doors to the stairwells—not the stairwells themselves, which are indestructible, but the doors and surrounding walls. This strategy is being employed across multiple floors as teams threaten each other for keys. Carl reflects that the dungeon appears to be culling crawlers more aggressively than usual because too many survived the seventh floor when teams cooperated. He notes the concerning trend that very few crawlers reach the later floors: the ninth floor averages around 8,000 crawlers, but the eleventh floor sees fewer than ten. As they approach the church, Samantha reveals that the snake demon is actually casting a portal spell to escape, not being controlled by Sister Ines as previously assumed. The portal is drawing souls upward, creating a massive tornado of possessed seagulls. Through conversations with other crawlers, Carl learns that full-powered demons require two souls to return home and leave portal holes that instantly kill crawlers by causing them to explode when their equipment is pulled through. Carl then contacts Imani, learning that the stripper-mercenaries he locked in the training arcade have bred hundreds of Sluggalos through Doctor Bones's infection. He orders Imani to release the low-level Sluggalos against the demons, theorizing they will serve as the second soul needed to send the demons back to Sheol. Carl also requests updates from Prepotente about environmental changes in distant locations, suspecting the portal spell's effects may be spreading globally. The chapter ends with Carl asking Prepotente for ideas on how to make whatever is about to happen spread worldwide.