Don't forget: when Hongjun merged himself with the Dao, it was the Heavenly Dao he merged with! Cultivating the Hongjun Immortal Dao System drew a person ever deeper into the Heavenly Dao. It seemed to make them stronger, but Hongjun's merger had given the Heartless Heavenly Dao a consciousness. What consequences would that have?
Wouldn't everyone who cultivated Hongjun's Immortal Dao and merged with the Heavenly Dao fall under his control and become his puppet?
If all that was true, Hongjun's preaching at the Purple Cloud Palace had been a scheme—a vast conspiracy to ensnare the Primordial World! Force-Proving Dao wasn't something even Pangu had failed to achieve. Pangu had been trying to prove the Great Dao! The Three Corpses Severing Technique wasn't a path to Primordial Unity at all, but a trap! And becoming a Saint through Merit only drew a person deeper into the Heavenly Dao!
Damn it. So Hongjun's ultimate goal in preaching the Dao had been to make everyone merge with the Heavenly Dao!
And Hongjun had succeeded! He had spread the Hongjun Immortal Dao System throughout the Primordial World, and no one had even noticed what was wrong with it. If Tongtian hadn't created the Heaven-Cutting Sword Dao and uncovered the secret of Force-Proving Dao, they might still have been in the dark!
Come to think of it, perhaps Tongtian had been imprisoned in the Purple Cloud Palace precisely because he discovered the Immortal Dao System's secret. Hongjun might have locked him away to keep it from getting out. After all those battles among Saints, Tongtian was the only one imprisoned. That made no sense otherwise!
Xuanming's icy gaze grew colder still. "I never imagined Hongjun's preaching was so treacherous! And he succeeded, deceiving the Primordial World for so long. Even now, amid all this