The Cognoscents' intentional corruption of various creatures led to huge leaps in understanding of the Break in a very short amount of time. However, certain among their number were so intoxicated by this success that they began to lose sight of the original point of their research—to learn how to protect humanity from the Break and ultimately halt its spread. Some even began to perform experiments on the very humans they were tasked with protecting, a development which led many Cognoscents to abandon their research altogether in disgust, leaving their Guilds to crumble as the Corruption consumed them at last.