No.
An Jing frowned, thinking deeper. "This only prevents the method from being abused. It cannot stop those who have learned the Imperial Book's secret canon from using it—unless using the 'devouring humans' method requires a special authority, and that authority is known to only one person. And that person is..."
[Us.]
The Dao Spirit said calmly, [The Heavenly Demon Secret Pact restricts the true core of the Imperial Book's methods. Only a single existence may grasp the art of devouring humans.]
[And that existence is us.]
[The rotation of Heaven and Earth, the cyclical principle of the Great Dao... this is the core of the Dao's laws, the divine pact by which Heaven and Earth operate. By sealing this Dao method, Heavenly Demons are instinctively incapable of resisting. They can only obediently serve as our dogs and guard this greatest secret. Anyone who seeks to investigate it, or investigates to this point, will encounter the Heavenly Demons' backlash. Not even Xuantian Emperor Lord... is an exception.]
The Dao Spirit, thoroughly refined by An Jing, explained in an even tone. Yet upon hearing this, An Jing frowned.
"The Former Emperor."
He murmured softly. This was indeed something An Jing had previously overlooked. "Did the Former Emperor reach this point in his investigation? Back then, he did not merely intend to spread this cultivation method to Prince Jing. Rather, he had already uncovered this most fundamental truth?"
[We do not know.]
The Dao Spirit said, [We were severed from the main body twenty years ago. Of the information from these past twenty years, apart from a small portion publicly released by the Emperor Court, we know nothing.]
The Dao Spirit truly did not know.
But not knowing was itself an answer.
An Jing's mind was exceptionally keen, and in an instant,