Chapter 281: Hand It Over! Mind Stone Acquired.
Loki dropped to one knee, breathing hard. His green cape had been burned down to barely half its length, and of the two antelope horns on his helmet, only one still remained.
The sorry state he was in now was entirely Wanda's doing. Even after using everything he had to dodge, several of the phoenixes had still found their mark.
Fury boiled inside Loki, but underneath it, fear ran deeper still. He'd never imagined Earth's sorcerers could be this formidable.
He'd always assumed Earth was little more than a magical backwater — so how in the world had it produced this many powerful spellcasters, one after another? Ethan was one. This woman in front of him was another. And then there was that so-called Sorcerer Supreme, ranked as an equal to Odin himself.
Loki had never actually witnessed the Sorcerer Supreme's strength firsthand. He'd always assumed Odin only extended him that respect out of deference to his age.
What a load of nonsense — "Sorcerer Supreme" is just a title someone hands out of politeness.
But now he was beginning to suspect he'd badly underestimated Earth's true strength — and worse, that these people could all see straight through his illusions.
Unless... can everyone on Earth see through them? No, that can't be right either — my illusions still worked fine before. They just don't work on these two monsters in particular.
Ethan, meanwhile, stood off to the side, quietly watching Loki.
He'd been keeping a close eye on the fight the whole time, worried Wanda might get hurt. But seeing how far her strength had come, he felt a real swell of relief and pride.
Ethan stood with his arms crossed, watching Loki with an easy, unhurried air, as if enjoying a show. As for his own opponent, Kaito — the man currently had his hands more than full elsewhere.
Ethan had summoned no fewer than ten Riders to gang up righteously on Kaito.
Not that Kaito hadn't tried summoning Riders of his own back — but this time, nearly every Rider Ethan called out was a top-tier, "final" form, while Kaito's summons were mostly base forms, getting wiped out the instant they appeared.
Catching a stray thread of Loki's inner monologue, Ethan let out a quiet, amused laugh.
He could feel every ounce of Loki's fury and terror, and understood the man's confusion and resentment well enough. Unless Loki could pull off something on the scale of old-Loki conjuring an entire illusory replica of Asgard, there was no fooling either of them.
Honestly, Ethan figured most of Hell's Kitchen's superheroes — and the stronger sorcerers over at Kamar-Taj — could probably see through Loki's current-level illusions just as easily.
As for this Loki, standing here now? Ethan's honest assessment was: go train for another two and a half years, kid, then come back.
Loki was still far too arrogant for his own good — he needed a proper beating to knock some sense into him. The only reason he was managing to hold his own against Wanda at all was because she was still young. If Wanda had anywhere near the strength she'd have in Avengers 4, Loki would go down in a single hit.
Of course, Ethan had no intention of killing Loki outright right now — the man still had his uses. Part of it came down to the dream-encounter with Loki, God of Stories, which left Ethan wary of acting rashly. Until he was certain whether that Loki was friend or foe, it seemed wise to go easy on this Loki here.
The second reason was simpler: Ethan's opinion of Loki wasn't actually that low to begin with. The fact that Loki had once sacrificed himself for Thor's sake told Ethan the man wasn't rotten at the core. And combined with what Ethan could sense of Loki's inner thoughts —
Bluntly put, Loki was just a man starved for love, doing everything he did in a desperate bid to win his father's approval.
Honestly, if Ethan were in Loki's shoes, he figured he'd have played things a lot more ruthlessly. Loki was still, in a word, naive.
More than that, though — Ethan could sense that Loki's emotions and mind were currently being manipulated by some mysterious outside force.
Ethan glanced at the scepter in Loki's hand. Is it because of the Mind Stone?
Of course, whatever lesson was owed, Ethan still intended to collect on it — interest included. Mind Stone. Loki, you clearly can't handle this responsibly. Might as well hand it over to me instead, Ethan thought to himself.
Loki scanned the battlefield and realized his position had turned genuinely dire — retreat was starting to look like the only option.
Then Loki did something Wanda never saw coming. He threw both hands up in the air.
"I surrender!"
Yes — the same Loki who'd been utterly insufferable moments ago was now surrendering, without a shred of shame to speak of.
Watching Ethan lounge there enjoying the show, and facing a woman who apparently didn't even need cooldowns or mana to keep casting, Loki knew full well he was outmatched. There was no way he'd be foolish enough to keep fighting a losing battle.
Besides — this was all part of the plan.
Sure enough, Wanda blinked in surprise at Loki's utterly shameless surrender, glancing over at Ethan for a beat.
Loki seized the opening without hesitation, flashing instantly to a spot behind Kaito.
"Go, now!" he shouted urgently. He knew this was their one chance to get out.
Kaito caught on immediately — first knocking back the Riders swarming him, then swiftly summoning a Dimensional Gate to make his exit.
Just before leaving, Kaito dropped his transformation and shot Ethan one last, meaningful look. There was a flicker of stubborn refusal to lose in his eyes, as if to say: next time we cross paths, I'm going all out.
Kaito would never admit that he'd come up short against Ethan — sure, he could tell Ethan hadn't been fighting at full strength either, but then again, neither had he.
Loki, meanwhile, wore an expression somewhere between smug satisfaction and lingering frustration — smug, because he'd fooled Wanda; frustrated, because he refused to admit he couldn't even beat some woman standing next to Ethan.
Loki hurried into the Dimensional Gate, terrified that another second's delay would see Ethan drag him straight back out.
Right before he vanished, Loki fired off one last taunt at Ethan. "Just you wait. The Chitauri army is coming to Earth soon, and before long, I'll be ruling this entire planet. No matter how strong you think you are, you can't save everyone single-handedly once the army arrives."
"When that day comes, I'll have you on your knees, begging me. Heh heh heh!"
What Loki didn't know was that Ethan had already fully prepared for the Chitauri invasion — and had, in fact, been waiting for Loki to send them.
Loki thought he'd successfully fooled both Ethan and Wanda. In truth, his acting had been so clumsy there was never any chance of it working on Ethan.
Ethan had let Loki go on purpose.
The instant Loki passed through the Dimensional Gate and arrived somewhere far from Ethan, he checked carefully around him, making sure Ethan hadn't followed.
Satisfied, he threw his head back and laughed. "Ethan Cross — is that really all you've got? Look how easily I played you both for fools."
But the next instant, a golden ring of light quietly flickered into being right beside him.
Before Loki could even react, a hand reached out from within the golden ring and snatched the scepter clean out of his grip.
"Gotcha!"
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