Heaven-and-Earth Devouring Humans.
It sounded terrifying, but in truth, it was not.
This was merely humanity's instinctive fear of being eaten—the fear of falling from the top of the food chain, the instinctive rejection of any notion that "I will be eaten" or "I will become another existence's prey."
But to An Jing at this moment, the true meaning behind those four words was not terror, but... something entirely natural.
The meaning of Heaven-and-Earth Devouring Humans was simple.
Just as people consumed qi and fed upon spirit, refining Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures to elevate themselves as a matter of course, Heaven and Earth would likewise use people as provisions to strengthen themselves.
And this was nothing unusual.
As early as hundreds of thousands of years ago—or perhaps even further back—the pioneers of the Dao Court had seen through this truth: humanity used Spiritual Energy to "cultivate" the Great Dao, but in essence, the Great Dao was also using Spiritual Energy to "cultivate" humanity.
It was a process of mutual achievement and mutual completion, much like the relationship between Piyi and the Hundred Aspects of the Great Furnace. The Hundred Aspects of the Great Furnace replenished Piyi's incomplete body, while Piyi granted the Hundred Aspects of the Great Furnace the wisdom it lacked.
And the final step of cultivation, [Dao Union], was when a person had cultivated Spiritual Energy to its utmost limit, and Spiritual Energy had likewise cultivated that person to its utmost limit. Their Daos merged and their spirits congealed; no distinction remained between them as they fused completely into one.
This was [Unity of Heaven and Man].
The One was the Dao. This was also the original description of Return to Void Dao One.
[Primordial Dao God]
The method of [Heaven-and-Earth Devouring Humans] that An Jing had