The human experts sneered upon seeing this. "The reason the Human Emperor ordered the public trial of you, Daoist Taiqing, is precisely to let all humans understand that even as a Saint, you are not sacred and are on equal footing with ordinary humans."
"Our human race does not recognize your innate divinity, nor your claim to be above all beings, naturally harvesting human destiny and treating all things in heaven and earth as your private property."
"Equality for all, yet with distinctions of superiority and inferiority? Distinctions of nobility and baseness?"
"Your role, Daoist Taiqing, is to use your death to completely eradicate humanity's reverence for innate deities. That is your greatest purpose!"
"Silence!"
The scene shifted, showing Xuan Du and Saint Taiqing, their powers and souls sealed, being escorted to the execution ground.
The Human Emperor listed ten major crimes of Xuan Du and Saint Taiqing. Given Saint Taiqing's prestige among humans, all humans were allowed to vote publicly on his life or death.
This was the so-called: Public Vote to Kill a Saint!
After the vote, ninety percent of the votes were for the execution of Saint Taiqing. Saint Taiqing then died in despair, his soul, body, and power annihilated, and his connection to the Heavenly Dao severed.
He became the first Saint to be publicly tried and killed by popular will!
The sanctity of a Saint had been utterly destroyed.
After this event, all humans realized that Saints were merely ordinary people, capable of not only being in positions of power but also of being in dire straits.
The thought of bowing and worshipping Saints no longer existed in their hearts.
The scene from the Heavenly Secrets Interference Device ended here.
Fang Ming retracted the Heavenly Secrets Interference Device. He knew that the scene he had just witnessed was the true future that Saint Taiqing had glimpsed through a surge of inspiration and divination.
If Saint Taiqing had truly understood this scene, Fang Ming estimated that a palm strike would have come from Shouyang Mountain, and Saint Taiqing would have annihilated the human race without regard for Nuwa's presence.
Unfortunately, he could not divine it. The Heavenly Secrets Interference Device had intercepted this scene and, according to Fang Ming's plan, inserted some personal modifications.
Fang Ming had modified the Heaven-Shielding Method, which could absorb the longevity-rich essence from the primordial spiritual energy to achieve immortality, to ignore the longevity essence. This caused Saint Taiqing to not realize the existence of longevity essence.
It also led Saint Taiqing to believe that the Heaven-Shielding Method was a method for shortening life.
There were many other personal modifications Fang Ming had added.
Fang Ming dared not show the true future to Saint Taiqing.
Instead, he used the "Primordial Supremacy Theory" and "Center of All Realms Theory" favored by primordial enthusiasts, stuffing in many personal touches to inflate Saint Taiqing's ego, making him believe he was invincible.
This caused him to overlook the threat of the Heaven-Shielding Method, allowing Fang Ming to freely dismantle the Golden Core Dao among humans and spread the Heaven-Shielding Method without fear of a giant hand wiping out the entire human race one day.
Heavenly secrets divination was indeed powerful, a capability that corrupt rulers dreamed of, allowing them to control the fate of all beings, making it impossible for them to defy fate and solidifying the class structure.
However, Fang Ming had crippled this ability. By using the Heavenly Secrets Interference Device to mislead them, he found himself enjoying it more and more.
The more they believed in the power of heavenly secrets divination, the more they would be misled.
Let those great divine powers enjoy themselves.
After all, Fang Ming dared not show the true future to them.
Not to mention the high-ranking officials of the Demon Court or Saint Taiqing, even if Saint Nuwa divined the future, Fang Ming would directly insert some personal modifications into her divination, not daring to show her the true divinatory images.
Fang Ming could not guarantee what Saint Nuwa would do upon learning the future of the human race.
To avoid unpleasantness for both sides, it was best to prevent extreme situations from occurring.
"In the human race, everyone is equal, and everyone's strength is comparable to that of a Great Dao Saint."
"Everyone is like a dragon, and all beings are united..."
"Is this the path I will choose in the future?"
From that glimpse of the future, Fang Ming saw his future path.
United in spirit, all humans would unite to overthrow the high and mighty innate deities, bringing them down from their pedestals, and then, with the infinite potential of all beings, usher in the era of the Human Dao.
The Human Dao era would not just be about a few strong individuals in the human race, but about all humans, including ordinary people, possessing infinite power.
All beings achieving the Dao, all being comparable to the Great Dao realm, or even stronger, was Fang Ming's choice and character.
And their enemies, such as the Demon Court and the demon race, who were arrogant and treated humans as blood food, plundering human accumulations.
The myriad gods and Buddhas of the Investiture of the Gods and Journey to the West eras, the Xuanmen, and the Buddhist sects, although they recognized the infinite potential of the human race, used methods of deception to control beings, harvesting their destiny and faith to support the myriad gods and Buddhas.
These enemies, though seemingly terrifying, were not truly so.
Because they exploited all beings to support the highest-level practitioners, whereas Fang Ming's ultimate goal was for all beings to achieve the Dao.
"Then... should I take this path?"
Fang Ming already had an answer in his heart.
On Earth, he had never held any reverence for so-called mythical figures.
In Fang Ming's opinion at the time, the Dao had three grades.
The highest grade was for ancient sages and great thinkers like Laozi, who established doctrines and advocated the Daoist thought of purity, inaction, self-cultivation, and governance.
Fang Ming naturally respected sages like Laozi immensely.
The middle grade was for the immortals and gods in the ancient mythological system. This ancient mythological system, created by ancient ancestors based on their daily lives, although not comparable to the Hundred Schools of Thought, still taught people to be good and did not harm the world.
The lowest grade was the Daoism founded by Zhang Daoling. His actions and the various miraculous claims he propagated were merely to pander to people's desires or hopes, offering them an illusory realm.
Using gods and Buddhas to instill fear, his actions were all deceitful, such as refining elixirs and using talismans and water to cure illnesses, defrauding people of vast sums of money.
Furthermore, by falsely attributing himself to the sage Laozi and deifying him as the Heavenly Venerable of Supreme Clarity and Virtue, this transformation from human to god, this conflation of concepts, further tarnished the name of sage in Fang Ming's heart.
Daoism is not Daoism. Daoism is a philosophy, while Daoism is merely a tool used by some shameless individuals to use the names of sages and defraud people of money.
Fang Ming respected the great thinker Laozi, not the Heavenly Venerable of Supreme Clarity and Virtue, a mythical figure created for proselytizing.
Laozi was a human, not a god or immortal.
This was a fundamental issue, and the concepts should not be confused.
As for the so-called primordial mythology—Hongjun first appeared in the Ming Dynasty novel, Investiture of the Gods.
In other words, primordial mythology was created by people after the Ming Dynasty.
To be precise, it was not yet mythology, because Investiture of the Gods was still just a novel.
And the entire primordial system familiar to later generations was only compiled in modern times, around 2006 AD, and still belonged to the category of novels.
Fang Ming was not interested in the real-world Daoist and Buddhist religions, let alone this so-called primordial mythological system created and perfected in modern times.
If the Dao had three grades, and Daoism was considered the lowest grade, then the so-called primordial mythology could only be the lowest of the low.
It was precisely because of this that Fang Ming dared to directly vote to kill a Saint in the future scene divined by Saint Taiqing.