Bayal, meanwhile, began to stagnate. With everyday citizens regularly practicing magic and occultism, Bayal became a superpower its neighbors and rivals could not hope to match. However, with that sense of superiority came complacency and excess, just as Adonibaal predicted. The Bayali civilization's cultural development screeched to a halt, too focused on their own pleasure to focus on anything else.

Even the council of magi were not immune to the corruption, and as the years went by the original members passed into the Mansus, they were replaced by a loose-knit cabal of hedonists and jingoistic patriots. This group and their followers made up the composition of a movement calling itself [[The Church of the Second Flood]]. They believed that as they shared the same blood as a now-diving being, it was their right to do whatever they pleased. Why, then, should they be bound to the covenant that their foolish ancestors made a thousand years ago?