I know I didn't actually conform to the theme. I ran out of time unfortunately (started on the last day).
The idea was that there would be multiple floors and enemies the player had to fight on/with. If the player manages to survive the wave, they go down to the lower floor. If the player is killed, they go back to the previous floor, hence "death is only the beginning" in its literal meaning.
I made a global timescale that I wanted to use to slow down everything to a halt, and proceed to the next/previous level in a cool animation in front of the camera where the enemies and projectiles would go into a gradual slowmo. But because I ran out of time, there's just the one level and I didn't really have time to figure out the logistics of it, so to say. You can still see it taking effect when you win/lose.
If you're wondering why I'd make my own global timescale factor instead of using the Time.timeScale (this project is made in Unity), that's because Unity's timeScale is completely global and denies me any choice on what it affects and when. With my own scale factor, I have total control over it.