Traveler of the River of Time and Space

The downfall of the Aida Spirit Race originated from a catastrophic event recorded in ancient epics called the "Fall of the Eldar."

Currently, Su Ziyu, in a near-omniscient state, is able to read some clues pointing to the mastermind behind the scenes.

Clue one, the downfall of the Aida Spirit Race is closely related to one of the four Evil Gods, the youngest Slaanesh.

The Spirit Race, rich in emotions and highly intelligent, enjoyed pursuing life's pleasures, art, and sensory stimulation. One day, a strange disease began to spread among their kind, hysteria, mental derangement, and other psychological illnesses started affecting the entire Spirit Race. Some of them began to succumb to the shock of these pleasures, worshiping bizarre rituals to gain new experiences, mysterious knowledge, and sensory thrills. As these rituals proliferated, the societal structure of the Spirit Race began to divide.

Extreme hedonism started to spread within the Spirit Race.

This was the same after the Empire's Spiritual Ascension, where the Imperial nobility was excessively luxurious and hedonistic, pursuing sensory thrills and indulgent corruption; the speed of corruption among the noble class was astonishing, with nearly half of the Empire's nobility being ruined overnight.

The Chaotic Void is essentially a place where thought energy converges.

The inhabitants there are spiritual energy entities born from thinking and emotion, which do not die. They exist permanently, thus for a long time, similar thoughts and emotions converge, allowing them to constantly devour and evolve, growing and becoming more intense.

Eventually, a singular consciousness in the Chaotic Void becomes extremely powerful, gaining self-awareness and transforming into an existence akin to a demon or god.

These demons' entities are referred to as Chaos Power.

The four most powerful Authorities at that time were: Khorne — god of war, blood, and wrath; Sorcerer — god of change, conspiracy, and trickery; Nagash — god of plagues and disease; lastly, Slaanesh — god of pleasure and desire.

Among them, Slaanesh is particularly related to the Spirit Race, having been born from their final downfall.

Before this, Slaanesh was merely one of the growing Authorities within the Chaos, without a complete consciousness.

Clue two, during the initial downfall of the Aida Spirit Race, there was actually a large internal split; some Aida opposed hedonism, deciding to venture to other planets to rebuild a new Spirit Race society. But unexpectedly, before they could complete their plan, they went to war with the Orks for some reason, and a vast number of Orks invaded the Star System inhabited by the Spirit Race, defeating the branch that hadn't been corrupted by hedonism.

Clue three, there are four contracts related to Spiritual Ascension, and there are precisely four Evil Gods in the Void.

"Gao Ge and Mao Ge have eaten the corpse of Evil God Nagash."

"The extinction of the Spirit Race led to Slaanesh's complete revival."

"Wow!"

"These four Spiritual Ascension contracts clearly are a prehistoric trap!" Su Ziyu couldn't help but mumble to himself, "Unless you skip these four Void Contracts, otherwise, no matter which contract you sign, you may eventually fall into one of the Evil God's traps."

"No wonder I have never heard of any civilization successfully completing Spiritual Ascension!"

Theoretically speaking.

If any race has truly completed Spiritual Ascension, their racial value, that is, racial talent, would elevate to the level of the Aida Spirit Race during the Heaven War era, dominating nearly one-third of the Milky Way Galaxy.

As for why the Orks corrupted by Nagash appeared here.

Su Ziyu suspects this may relate to the fact that Father Nagash is the oldest Evil God, the other three Evil Gods were born much later than him; it's also possible that Nagash once clashed with the Space-Time Inspectors and Guardians, upon sensing the existence of the Space-Time Monitor System, he immediately took decisive action.

"The four Evil Gods likely set up a trap to harvest the Spiritual Energy civilizations of the Milky Way Galaxy back in the day!"

"They disguised themselves as mysterious beings in the Void Realm."

"After the Heaven War, constantly tempting other civilized races to walk the path of Spiritual Ascension, using the four contracts of the Void Realm to harvest and control them."

"The Empire was once corrupted by the ancient evil Emperor, who is likely to be an unharvested fruit."

"It was precisely because I killed him in advance."

"Those Evil Gods noticed my existence, and they locked onto the breath of the Hourglass of Time."

Thinking of this, Su Ziyu felt a strong sense of crisis, knowing he must act swiftly; because the true mastermind has yet to appear, what appears before him is just their pawn, they might also be probing, wanting to know if Su Ziyu is the only Space-Time Inspector, or if the group of Guardians from the Space-Time Hub has returned.

If it's the latter, then the ascension trap they set might not last long, because the Space-Time Guardians will absolutely not tolerate civilizations being harvested in this manner.

.........

(PS: This year is indeed a troubled year. Two months ago, Futu was feeling unwell, caught a cold, cough; at first, it wasn't very serious, but in the second week, started coughing blood; the first phlegm every morning had blood, and when the coughing was severe, there was always a fishy sweetness in the throat.

Haha, there's nothing wrong, don't panic, sit down, let's continue chatting.

At that time, I almost thought I was done for, went to the hospital for a checkup, took an x-ray, the lungs were fine, but the smoking habit lasted almost ten years, chronic pharyngitis worsened, coupled with cold and cough, directly ruptured the capillaries, hence the constant blood cough, doctor said the lungs weren't a big problem.

Futu didn't smoke before, only started smoking after writing.

The worst was while writing "Overlord of the Abyss," if staying up late to rush writing, could smoke one or two packs a night. Several attempts to quit smoking, but all failed due to writing. Once writer's block hits, I reach for a cigarette, many old smokers among writers, before you know it, I was smoking again.

I told no one at the time, only mentioned it to the family later when things were certain, told the editor when asked.

Only some long-time friends among the book fans knew.

Now forcibly quit smoking for more than two months, feeling alright, feels like the lungs are coming back to life, trying to write again, unconsciously reach for cigarettes, and then remember I've quit, sometimes feel uneasy when smelling others smoke, dislike that smell, still have the habit of reaching for cigarettes psychologically.

Still recovering and adapting slowly, the state is quite good, just gained quite a few pounds after quitting smoking.

Rapidly putting on weight.

As for why I didn't mention it earlier, I didn't want to scare anyone, now that it's determined not a big deal, just chatting with you all is enough.

Trying slow updates, but don't expect too much, as Futu's physical condition really needs nurturing, the body couldn't withstand the exhaustion like before, nor unexpectedly cough up blood with cold.

Current status probably only allows for intermittent updates.

It's been ten years.

Let me have a good rest in between, we'll embark on another decade.

—Love from Futu.

```