Inven Global

Once you enter Empowered Monoliths, you will begin raising 'Corruption' in earnest. Corruption applies separately to each Timeline; as Corruption increases, monster health and damage increase, but item rarity, experience, and Echo rewards also increase. Because entering certain endgame content requires a minimum level of Corruption, it is a system you must understand.

Empowered Monoliths start at 100 Corruption. As you clear Echoes and explore far from the center of the Echo web, you can discover nodes called 'Echo of a World', where the 'Shade of Orobyss' appears. Defeating the boss in this Echo increases Corruption and resets the Echo web. However, accumulated Stability and active modifiers are not reset.

The first thing to know when raising Corruption is that the base Corruption gained depends on 'the location where you defeat the Shade'. Generally, the farther away from the center you are, the more Corruption you earn, so it is advantageous to expand your exploration as far outward as possible.

To raise Corruption quickly, it is important to utilize 'Gaze of Orobyss'. Gaze of Orobyss is a stacking effect gained by defeating the final boss of an Empowered Monolith, which provides extra Corruption when you defeat the Shade of Orobyss with stacks active. Each stack adds 12 Corruption, and up to 4 stacks are consumed upon defeating the Shade. If you die during combat with the Shade, you lose 1 stack of Gaze.

However, stacking up to 4 Gaze stacks is not always the best approach. If your character's stats require a significant amount of time to repeatedly defeat Timeline bosses, clearing the Shade after securing just 1 or 2 stacks is also a good option. While 4 stacks are advantageous for gaining a lot of Corruption at once, overall efficiency depends on your character's gear and stats.

To challenge a Timeline boss for Gaze stacks, you usually need to run Echoes to build up Stability. However, by using two utility items, you can easily stack Stability and Gaze without running Echoes, so it is well worth knowing about them.

The first utility item is the 'Temporal Keystone'. The number to the left of the '+' icon on the right side of the Stability bar shows your current quantity; pressing the + button consumes 1 Keystone to increase Stability. If you have enough of these items, you can go straight to the boss without running a single Echo. Keystones can be obtained while running Echoes or by defeating lizards, Harbingers, and other enemies.

The second utility item is the 'Harbinger's Needle'. Dropped by Harbingers, this item can be equipped in an Idol slot. When you defeat an eligible Timeline boss, it grants 3 additional stacks of Gaze of Orobyss and is consumed. Utilizing these two items drastically reduces the time required to farm Gaze.

If there is a large difference in Corruption between your highest-Corruption Timeline and your current Timeline, you receive a catch-up bonus based on that difference in the lower-Corruption Timeline. For example, if one Timeline has 500 Corruption and another has 100, defeating the Shade in the 100-Corruption Timeline grants bonus Corruption.

By leveraging this mechanic, you do not need to raise Corruption evenly across all Timelines from the start. Instead, pushing Corruption high in one Timeline first and then tackling other Timelines can actually be far more efficient for building Corruption.