After Dong, Gonk, Rend, Jamal, and Bigs finish off the mercenaries, Carl secures the room and loots the dead, leaving Admiral/Architect Houston as the last Viceroy in the castle. Selvi and Tuba, two young crawlers under Conscription, are tied up and muted because resisting their forced orders is injuring them, and Tuba is bleeding badly from a no-healing debuff. Carl wants to free them, but that requires defeating the Madness first.

Carl sends Bigs away from the captives and moves with Dong toward the surgical theater beside the throne room. Bigs reports the front door is open, then Carl orders Bigs into the Madness throne room, which starts a six-hour occupation timer for the Princess Posse. Carl and Dong enter the surgical theater and find a white operating room dominated by a Viceroy surgical machine called the Grease Monkey.

Inside, Zeynep is dead on one table, Burcu is alive but bound and mutilated on another, and the dead changeling Namico is being physically connected to Houston by the machine. Houston warns that the room is ringed with chained Containment Breach traps tied to his death and to the floor; if triggered, Sheol fire will incinerate everything. Outside, Donut is still trying to use the rolling ball against the enemy while Harpocrates comes for her, and Li Jun prepares to lure the god away to buy time.

Burcu finally receives Carl’s message and tells Carl that Houston tortured and killed her mother, cut out Burcu’s tongue and voice box, and must die. Houston insists his work with the changelings can reach something called the Beautiful Place. Carl uses Walk on Air to avoid the floor, jumps between operating tables, pockets the cleaner bot, puts Burcu to sleep with Nighty-Night, and releases Burcu’s bindings, trying to save Burcu before attacking Houston.

Then Eris wakes inside the rolling ball and removes the team’s external invulnerability, leaving Carl suddenly exposed. Li Jun sends a farewell message to Li Na while sacrificing himself to distract Harpocrates. Houston begins dying as the changeling transforms into a rootlike entity, so Carl throws Houston a healing potion, but when Carl jumps to Burcu’s table, it tips; Burcu wakes and falls, and Carl’s feet touch the floor, triggering the traps.

Carl activates Gloom Wraith Phase just as Sheol fire fills the room. Carl phases through Houston and the strange entity, killing Houston, but sees the entity take Li Jun’s face and thank Carl for giving Li Jun more time with his sister and best friend. Carl escapes injured, learns Li Jun is dead, and receives system messages: the Madness has fallen, its assets go to the Princess Posse, Larracos enters the Peeling Phase, Agatha’s War Mage Rebellion gains warlord powers and Conscription, defeated teams will now die outright, and the War Mage Rebellion has seized Team Retribution’s throne room.