I mean, I lost to the Lovehug without wanting to and unintentionally got the egg protector through repeat failures. I think if you keep grinding so much just to min-max yourself into Godhood, the content you want to see is going to be that much harder to see since you're basically stronger than almost everything else. Also, there are auto-loss options in the abilities menu, so y'know...
Also also, there is no time limit afaik for the main quest. But 3x also, getting to level 40 isn't that hard, which is around the region of where you can get drained to level 5 if that is your thing. Honestly, my complaint is that the DEUS VULT stuff is being gate-kept behind NG+. The first game at least let you purge indiscriminately if that was your style.