Glad you enjoyed it!
You can definitely run away with the game after the end of the notoriety. I originally didn't think it was possible to get that far and survive, but clever players find some ways. If you get there, you will have no trouble with the final battle for sure. Ideally, there would be a mechanic to push the player to the final battle before they've had time to become incredibly strong, but I never came up with a great solution to that.