Yes, you beat it, both endings actually! The first one triggers when you buy the last node of the constellation (that's the credits screen), and the second one is at biome 106.
The death wasn't supposed to happen, though. When you reach the second ending, the Hollow is meant to stop running and the Rot's drain is meant to stop too, so he can finally rest there. Dying on the ending screen and getting recycled was definitely not how that moment was supposed to play out, sorry it ended that way for you! Your guess about the drain is right otherwise: it grows with distance, so by biome 106 it hits hard.
Fair point on the endings being too obscure about whether the game is over. That's a good lesson for my next project. Thanks for sticking with it all the way, you might be the first player to see everything HollowRun has!
