You Can Still Perform Magic Tricks?

"God, what was wrong with those people? Had they turned into zombies? Tony, look! Even the military and The Seven could barely hold them back."

By the river, a kilometer from town, the two young men in plaid shirts were still using their aerial drone to film.

The young man named Tony snatched the controller away. "Why are you filming them? The audience wants to see Homelander. Filming Homelander gets views!"

"Huh? Where's Homelander? Where did he go?"

A faint whistling sound rose from the sky.

Charlie looked up toward the heights, and then a blue Afterimage tore through the clouds and descended.

"He's in the sky!"

"Tony, Homelander's in the sky!"

The drone quickly adjusted its angle. On the screen, Homelander looked like a comet streaking through the atmosphere at incredible speed. Only a blurry Afterimage could be seen; his actual body was nowhere in sight.

The shadow flashed across the screen, plunging straight down and trailing a pale gray tail as it fell into the town.

Bang!

A terrifying, earthshaking boom erupted from the town.

It was like a meteor had fallen into the town, making the entire ground shake violently.

The next second.

A towering wave of stone burst from Homelander's landing point, then rapidly spread outward.

The earth trembled, throwing up ring after ring of stone waves. Wherever they swept through, buildings were hurled into the air before exploding into fragments.

In an instant, the stone waves surged through the town in expanding circles, tossing countless Nightcrawlers into the air before burying them.

The military and Supers hurriedly retreated. Engines of all kinds of vehicles roared as they sped toward the highway outside town.

When the tremors finally stopped, fragments of all sizes rained down upon the earth.

Element Man's eyes turned pale yellow. The ground beneath her feet immediately rose, forming a stone pillar that carried her more than ten meters into the air.

Standing atop the pillar, she looked toward the town and could not help sucking in a cold breath.

Silver Tree Town had vanished.

A massive meteor crater had appeared in the earth, thick dust and smoke billowing up from within.

A moment later.

A blackened hand suddenly stretched out from a pile of rubble, followed by a Nightcrawler climbing out of the stones.

Then, more and more mutated residents crawled out. Like mushrooms after rain, they emerged from every ruin and heap of rubble.

Element Man's expression changed when she saw this, and she shouted downward, "They're not dead!"

"Those mutated residents are still alive!"

As he poured sand out of his hat, Colonel Yuri heard those words and wore a bitter expression.

Inside the meteor crater.

At its very center, Azu frowned slightly as he watched bubbles rise before him.

These soap-bubble-like things looked utterly out of place here.

What made Azu frown was not the bubbles themselves, but what had happened when he had plunged down from the sky and crashed into the town, just as he was about to kill that fat man.

When he struck him, Big Eater had scattered into a pile of soap bubbles.

That clearly was not Big Eater's ability.

Or rather.

Was Insight's level too low to see all of that fat man's Talents?

Azu raised his head, lifted his feet from the ground, and flew upward through the bubbles.

After reaching the surface, he looked around and quickly spotted two figures.

One was Big Eater.

The other was a Joker dressed flamboyantly and covered in colorful makeup.

Midnight Clown!

Azu immediately cast Insight on him.

Name: Brad Willy (Midnight Clown)

Life Level: Level 4 (Super)

Status: Terrified

Talent: Substitution Technique, Illusion Creation, Absolute Hit.

Substitution Technique, Illusion Creation, Absolute Hit.

Three Talents.

That was a luxurious loadout compared to other Supers.

No wonder he could serve as a council member of Vought.

Azu glanced at Big Eater beside the Joker and thought that the fat man turning into soap bubbles earlier must have been the Joker using Substitution Technique on him.

In other words, Substitution Technique could be used on people other than himself.

Azu scanned the area again.

Those animals from before, along with Replicant, were all dead.

During the Heaven-Earth Collision just now, they had been close to the impact's center and had endured an enormous shockwave.

That allowed Azu to confirm something else.

Substitution Technique could not be used on everyone. At most, it could only be used on himself and one other person.

Although Azu's guess was not entirely accurate, it was already very close.

More precisely, the Joker's Substitution Technique could be used on multiple people, but there was one condition: he had to touch them before he could use it on anyone other than himself.

At the time, he had been inside the tent with Big Eater, using Illusion Creation to disguise himself.

That was why he had been able to save both himself and Big Eater in time without Azu noticing.

His life had been spared for now.

But Midnight Clown still broke out in a cold sweat. He had originally thought that sealing Homelander's Heat Ray would cripple this Super by half.

Instead, not only had his troupe members been killed one after another, but Homelander had also descended from the sky as a human meteor and nearly scared him pissless.

"Looks like it."

"The Circus only has you two left."

Azu smiled, then flashed forward at high speed and charged toward Big Eater.

The moment he moved, Midnight Clown, who was clutching Big Eater, shouted. His and the fat man's figures immediately lost all substance.

When Azu rammed through the fat man, their figures suddenly turned into a flock of white doves beating their wings through the air.

"Oh."

"So that's how it is."

"You can perform magic tricks."

"Still, it seems you need physical contact to perform this kind of trick?"

Azu turned around and looked at the pair as their figures reappeared in the air.

Midnight Clown suddenly pulled out a syringe and shouted, "Long Live the Council!"

He was about to stab it into his own neck.

Azu violently kicked up a stone from the ground. It instantly exploded into hundreds of fragments that shrieked through the air like bullets from a machine gun, sweeping over the Joker and his syringe.

But the Joker and the fat man beside him suddenly shattered like mirrors. Their figures broke into patches of light and swiftly faded into the air.

Those two figures were illusions created by the Joker!

The real Joker appeared behind the ruins of a house. He also took out a syringe and stabbed it toward his own neck.

Just then, a hand reached out from the rubble behind him and blocked the space between the Joker's neck and the syringe.

The syringe stabbed into that palm. Its needle immediately bent, and then the ruins behind the Joker exploded.

Amid the flying debris, Azu stood smiling behind Brad and suddenly clenched his fist.

The Joker's syringe twisted apart and shattered, its blood-red liquid spilling across the ground.

This time, the Joker and Big Eater turned into countless playing cards, their figures vanishing among them.