Yet this power affected not only worlds and life. The corruption of concepts extended from the metaphysical all the way down to the physical.
Structures, ideas, ways of thinking...
These abstract yet tangible things that existed within every individual were likewise being corrupted. Those effects interacted with one another, continuously amplifying the power of corruption.
The Dao gave birth to them, virtue nurtured them, things gave them form, and circumstances brought them to completion.
The power of corruption acted upon all four. Thus, even the Gods and Buddhas of the Heavenly Court and Mount Lingshan could not escape it, becoming the Eastern Heaven and Western Heaven, who fed upon all living beings and fought one another for food.
The Eight Nine Arcane Art inclined toward inner cultivation, creating its own transformations. That was why Erlang Shen had, comparatively speaking, been able to retain some of his original thoughts.
But without achieving Primordial Unity, without forming his own "reality" to resist corruption, it would ultimately be nothing more than a temporary reprieve.
Adam glanced at the face of the Corruption Card.
A youth carried a lantern through the darkness. Within the faint circle of its light, his clothes had become a burial shroud, his skin had turned pale, cracked earth lay beneath his feet, and beside his skeletal foot rested a section of withered, fallen tree trunk.
The lantern illuminated the darkness and brought reality, yet the youth revealed beneath its light had long since died—so what, to him, was real?
Simple decay was not the opposite of order, but a link within order, as indispensable as decomposers in nature.
But the power within the Corruption Card was not merely decay under order. It was a lower-order concept originating from other concepts, projected into the Sea of Worlds and forcibly draped