After Carl’s group enters Khepri’s temple, the door slams shut and the portal cuts Carl’s capacitor wire. Time remains frozen, giving Carl a moment to assess the room: Vinata, her two target relatives, and three armed guards are present, but Rishi is absent. Vinata alone has an immortality countdown, and Carl notes that her protection will end before his own.

Carl realizes Vinata expected the assault. Vinata worshiped Khepri herself and arranged to summon the deity into his own temple, turning the hiding place into a trap. Carl warns the others by message to run when time resumes, but Katia and Prepotente refuse to abandon the fight.

The AI interrupts with an exaggerated boss-battle announcement, framing the confrontation as a temple grudge match. The AI reveals that Vinata is about to inherit a solar system and that her kingdom’s secret plan to seize shipbuilding factories is being leaked. The AI also emphasizes the stakes: Vinata’s survival would endanger Katia and Princess Donut, while Prepotente wants revenge and Carl is fighting to protect his people.

The AI introduces the combatants and identifies Khepri as a level 250 god of rebirth and sunrise, a locked deity, a retainer of Adrasteia, and invulnerable on this floor. The temple is described as an endless banquet covered in bugs, and the AI suggests Khepri may attack everyone, including Vinata, once time resumes.

As a thirty-second countdown begins, Carl, Katia, and Prepotente rapidly exchange a plan that Katia considers reckless. Admiral Corinne Whimpleshin, the Blood Sultanate adjutant, appears and tries to call a foul over the god’s summoning, but Victory says temple rules apply and the faction has no standing. Corinne accuses Carl of causing the situation, Carl denies summoning anything, betting closes, and the countdown ends as the fight is about to begin.