Defiled Heart

The Defiled Heart is the key to properly cleansing the Defiled from the world. Once a world enters Hardmode, they can be destroyed with any hammer that has 80% or higher hammer power. Hitting them with a hammer otherwise causes the player to lose half their health and leave the heart unaffected.

Consequences of destruction

- Once all Defiled Hearts in the world are destroyed, the Defiled will not spread at all unless when spread artificially.
- Defiled enemies will no longer regenerate health.
- The "Mimic Route" progression exclusive to Defiled worlds can no longer be achieved.

Messages and Behavior

Messages will only appear on the last Defiled Heart. The status messages below will appear as the Defiled Heart is struck:

- First hit: "The walls chitter violently around you..."
- Second hit: "P!ercIng scre@ms e%ho..."
- Third hit: "T*e hear7 vibra#e$ i@tens3l&."
- Fourth hit: "!7 c@%n0t 7@&3 #uc& m0re"
- Fifth hit: "01010111 01100101 00101110 00101110 00101110 00100000 01101010 01110101 01110011 01110100 00100000 01110111 01100001 01101110 01110100 01100101 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101111 00101110 00101110 00101110 00100000 01101100 01101001 01110110 01100101 00101101
(We... just wanted to... live-)"
- Sixth hit: "The Defiled begins to wither. Your hands are stained in bile."

These messages will appear if the player does not hit the Defiled Heart a 6th time:

- 5 seconds after: "I was expecting the end."
- 7 seconds after: "Our end?"
- 9 seconds after: "Trust us, you do?"

After the dialogue, the 'Defiled Protector' buff will be permanently applied to the player making Defiled enemies friendly and providing various boosts when in any Defiled biome until the last Defiled Heart has been destroyed. This opens up an entirely new path for progression in the game called the "Mimic Route". The Defiled Effigy NPC is also allowed to move in with the player as well.

Lore [itemLore] *placeholder lore below until lore is properly implemented

The Defiled Heart serves as the central working center for the Defiled, communicating information, generating chunks and using oxygen for energy production. The Defiled Heart uses up oxygen and gathered dark spirits to keep the Defiled going and growing eventually expelling out a pollutant that absorbs light in a way to make the world appear desaturated of color. Defiled Fissures contribute by communicating with the Heart about any activity reported by nearby Defiled creatures by sending the information with a nerve impulse signal, which travels along Defiled matter as dark magic.

Defiled Fissures also release and send Defiled spirits to paste to existing and future Defiled machinations for construction and repair.