I Don't Need to Be Defined

When the new members of The Seven joined the battle.

Bang!

The town square shook violently.

A ring of dust slowly spread outward.

Azu stood amid the dust, holding a stone in both hands. A man's face emerged on its surface.

At that moment, the face was filled with terror.

**Insight.**

Name: Kroft

Life Level: Level 4 (Supers)

Status: Fear

Talent: Petrification.

Azu examined the face on the stone and smiled. "Goodbye, Kroft."

He suddenly clenched his hands.

Cracks immediately appeared across the stone and spread toward the face.

"No, no—"

Azu brought his hands together, and the stone instantly shattered into fragments that fell to the ground.

He clapped his hands and pressed his earpiece. "Angelina, free hunt."

In the distant forest, Angelina, who had been lying in wait there all along, immediately raised her head.

A faint red glow flickered deep in her eyes.

She was both excited and nervous. After taking a deep breath, she rushed out.

In an instant, she became an afterimage, flashing through the woods.

In the blink of an eye, she left the forest and entered the town from another direction.

As she charged into town, she immediately spotted the dark-skinned Nightcrawler.

Recalling her sparring sessions with Homelander, Angelina suddenly accelerated and grabbed the Nightcrawler by the back of his collar.

She violently hoisted him up, twisted at the waist, and swung her arm.

Overhead throw!

Bang! Angelina slammed the Nightcrawler into the ground headfirst. His skull shattered on impact, and red and white matter spilled everywhere.

Angelina's expression immediately changed. Covering her mouth, she staggered back against a wall and retched.

Suddenly, a pair of arms burst through the window behind her and viciously clawed at Angelina's face.

Several bloody scratches instantly appeared on the girl's fair, delicate face.

Angelina jerked her head up. Instinctively grabbing both arms, she pressed down and snapped them on the spot, forcing the broken bones through the flesh.

Then she raised her foot and kicked forward viciously, shattering the wooden wall and sending the Nightcrawler inside flying backward.

By then, the wounds on Angelina's face had already healed.

The injured Nightcrawler climbed back up, his arms resetting and healing. Then he let out a roar and charged at the girl.

As he lunged through the gap in the wall, Angelina's shadow on the wall suddenly flickered.

The girl's figure pounced forward with claws outstretched. While she was still in midair, the Nightcrawler was torn into pieces.

Angelina lifted her foot and crushed the head whose eyeball was still rolling.

She seemed to be gradually getting used to fighting and killing. No longer feeling sick, she charged at the other Nightcrawlers and began freely hunting them down.

In the town square, Azu scanned his surroundings and quickly locked onto Big Eater's location.

At that moment, a group of animals charged out of the circus.

Tigers, lions, leopards, zebras, hippos, gorillas.

Whether herbivores or carnivores, all of the animals had bloodshot eyes as they charged fiercely toward Azu.

"Seriously? You're actually planning to fob me off with animals?" Azu spread his hands.

The fastest leopard reached Azu and suddenly pounced.

Azu's eyes immediately lit up gold. Then two Golden Beams tore through the air and sliced the leopard apart. But before he could sweep them across the other animals, the beams bent and shot into the Circus Tent.

There was no need to guess. Big Eater had used his talent to absorb his Heat Ray again.

Azu rose into the air, intending to attack from above, when a dark shadow suddenly flashed past the corner of his eye.

Then a figure crashed into Azu.

Azu did not budge, but he saw that the flamboyantly dressed man's body seemed boneless. His limbs slithered over Azu like pythons.

Then one arm extended downward, grabbed a streetlamp in the square, and pulled against it.

Azu let him drag him back to the ground, but tried to force his body apart.

To his surprise, the man's body was like rubber. No matter how far Azu spread his arms, he could not break free from the man's entanglement.

"It's useless, Homelander."

"I know you're incredibly strong, but against someone like me who can stretch infinitely, no matter how strong you are, you have nowhere to use that strength!"

The Rubber Man wrapped around Azu boasted smugly.

At that moment, cheerful music began playing inside the tent. Then figures started to emerge one after another.

Some of these extravagantly dressed people rode unicycles, some balanced on balls, some did somersaults, and some emerged stacked atop one another.

They looked exactly like an acrobat troupe.

The strange thing was that all these acrobats looked identical.

They were women with brown hair, thick lips, and purple eye makeup.

They approached Azu and, together with the animals, completed the encirclement.

Azu casually used Insight on one of the women.

Name: Replicant

Life Level: Level 4 (Supers)

Status: Excitement

Talent: Self-Replication.

By this point, Azu had roughly grasped the Black Bat Circus's tactics.

They were using Big Eater, their secret weapon, to counter his strongest weapon: Heat Ray.

They used Stone Golem, Rubber Man, Replicant, and those clearly controlled animals to hold him back while protecting Big Eater.

Meanwhile, the Midnight Clown, whose whereabouts remained unknown, might possess some means of hurting him—or at least believed he did.

And the crucial lynchpin of this strategy was undoubtedly Big Eater.

Thinking of this, Azu smiled.

"You don't seriously think you have a chance of defeating me, do you?"

The Midnight Clown's voice rang out from the loudspeakers.

"We don't need to defeat you."

"Homelander, open your eyes and take a good look."

"The army, and the so-called Seven, are already about to lose control."

"Once my Nightcrawlers break out of town and attack the city."

"Even if you kill all of us, you'll have already lost."

"People will never trust you, worship you, or support you again!"

"Your legend will end here!"

Azu shook his head and smiled. "What makes you think I care about trust, worship, or support?"

"I don't need any of that."

"And I don't need to be defined by anyone!"

"Besides."

"How much longer are you going to hide?"

"I'm curious. If I go kill that fat man right now, will you keep hiding?"

As soon as Azu finished speaking, the Rubber Man on him sneered. "Homelander, I won't let you get away from me."

"Is that so?"

"Let's see."

Azu bent down into a starting stance, but looked up at the sky.

He clenched both fists.

Boom!

A ring of air burst outward.

The grit on the ground began to bounce, faster and faster. When it suddenly sprayed outward in every direction, Azu became a phantom and shot into the sky.

"Ahhh!"

Rubber Man let out a shrill scream. The arms wrapped around Azu were immediately stretched longer and longer.

But Azu was too fast—so fast that he could not extend himself in time.

Rubber Man felt as though he was about to be torn apart, and hurriedly let go of the streetlamp.

Just as he breathed a sigh of relief, he saw Azu continuing to fly upward.

In the blink of an eye, outer space was already visible.

Rubber Man was instantly terrified. He tried to scream, but neither the air pressure nor the violent wind allowed him to make a sound.

Then the cold at high altitude rapidly froze the surface of his body.

Moments later, with no protection whatsoever, Rubber Man's blood froze and his body stiffened.

Azu casually slapped him, and he shattered into chunks that fell down below.

Azu looked down at the earth and smiled. "You can bend and redirect Heat Ray, but what about pure physical impact?"

Thanks to Meow Who Doesn't Do Proper Work, Liang Ye Qiqi, Little Qu Boy, Ding Haifeng, and the other generous supporters for their donations. Wishing everyone a happy New Year!

~(^з^)-☆