After crossing the finish, Carl is left gagging on Lucienne's gore inside the truck. Now that the race has ended, Carl can touch the controls again, so he forces the camel corpse driver out, parks properly, and clears the entrance as other teams arrive. Carl messages Jasha and Radoslav, who were delayed in the basement, and advises them to tow the unicorn in only if they can do so safely. Donut recovers Lucienne's cracked helmet, discovers it is cursed, and the two briefly debate whether sparing the hostile unicorn is worth the risk.

Then Lucia approaches, and Carl receives a strange notification identifying her as the Scavenger's Daughter. Lucia moves with impossible speed and, in a different voice and manner, delivers a warning: Chalchiuhtlicue is present on this floor, does not need intermediaries the way other powers did, and claims that letting everyone die may be the kindest option. Lucia says the "veins are open" and that more trapped beings, along with the real, the imagined, and the enslaved, are all converging on the twelfth floor's Ascendency. The message makes clear that the crawl has become something larger and more dangerous than either the NPCs or the crawlers were told.

Just as suddenly, that presence disappears and Lucia becomes a frightened girl named Azra. Azra says a shining goddess told her that Carl used a spell from her father to win races, which makes Carl realize she is connected to the note from Carl's Book of Boom that granted the Bumper spell. When Carl asks if her father owns a bowling alley, Azra confirms it and desperately asks for him. Carl cannot reunite them, but he tells Azra that her father is safe, loves her, and wants her to know he will see her soon.

Azra breaks down, admitting she is terrified because the goddess keeps saying others are coming to take their bodies and that death may be better. Florin tries to get names from her for his list, but Azra panics when she notices him and runs away. Florin chases after her, explaining that Lucia returns quickly when the other personalities are frightened and that he needs to prevent Lucia from harming their gremlin. Watching this, Carl starts forming a theory about Lucia's true nature, and he senses that Florin and Orren may already understand it.

Back in the truck, Dr. Metcalf releases the next race details. The coming course runs through industrial hazards requiring vertical climbs, inverted driving, and hundred-meter gaps, while extreme heat will be contained only as long as racers do not lose their containment fields to rivals through prolonged contact. Donut is shaken by the announcement, but Carl focuses on the practical upside that he can drive again. He then checks his backlog of messages and learns from Tran that Li Na cast a dread that caused another mass slaughter much like the one in Beijing; only a handful of teams survived, and Zhang is left sobbing after helping Tran's team through. The chapter ends with the official Heat Four results: Carl and Donut take first, while One Fine Pig is listed as eliminated.