"They saw through it."
Yeats shook his head regretfully, pulled out the bookmark that had snapped in two, and casually tossed it aside. "How's your recovery? Do you need me to draw another one over?"
"No need."
Lu Baiyan rubbed his wrist and answered coldly, "About ninety percent. That's enough."
After such long imprisonment, it was the first time he had felt so full of vigor. His divinity surged, his Stigmata operated freely, and at the same time, he felt that resonance, almost within reach.
Another Great Siming.
The one who had replaced everything he had been, who had taken all of his future away.
"How dazzling."
He murmured softly, "Dazzling enough to make one hate it."
Why, after he had fallen into hell, could someone else still shine?
"Let's begin, Yeats," he said. "Isn't the stage you wanted already right before us?"
"Take one more step, and there'll be no turning back," Yeats asked. "Have you thought it through?"
"Seventy years ago, I made no choice. Seventy years later, I should at least live with clarity. I stopped thinking about turning back long ago."
Lu Baiyan fell silent for a moment, then suddenly gave a mocking laugh. "What use is an inkstone that remains spotless, no matter how white it is?"
It was nothing more than an ornament.
"Then let us begin—"
Yeats smiled. "The journey of Journey to Byzantium."
At that instant, the pages in his hand slowly unfolded. The verses composed by that unparalleled poet poured forth like flowing water.
And the man's figure gradually became illusory, transforming into countless flowing characters that swiftly spread outward.
The Essence of Phenomena Yeats, from the fallen Heaven, revealed his true form here.
—From the Poem of Hell!
Twisting the world before them.
"This is no country for old men.