"Alright, whoever you are," Ethan growled, his voice dropping to a dangerous, icy whisper. "You want the Sanctum? Let's see if you can afford the admission price."
Down in the grand foyer, the situation was looking grim. The heavy oak doors were reduced to splinters. Over fifty dark-robed zealots flooded into the Sanctum, their hands crackling with Dormammu's corrosive purple energy. The six menial staff members were backed against the grand staircase, terrified and weaponless, waiting for the end.
The leader of the zealotsāthe man with the purple symbol on his foreheadāstepped forward, a cruel smile on his face. "Burn it all. Leave noā"
CRACK!
The sound was like a thunderclap inside the enclosed hall.
The dark sorcerers flinched, looking up. Standing on the mid-landing of the grand staircase was Ethan. He was barefoot, wearing a tight charcoal v-neck and designer jeans with a massive, dripping soda stain on the thigh. He didn't look like a Sorcerer Supreme's disciple. He looked like a guy whose Friday night had just been violently ruined.
"Do you have any idea," Ethan spoke, his voice unnervingly calm and echoing through the silent foyer, "how hard it is to get high-fructose corn syrup out of premium denim?"
The leader of the zealots sneered. "Are you the new Master? A child in street clothes? Kill him!"
Fifty zealots raised their hands. Dozens of dark energy bolts, lethal enough to melt solid steel, shot toward Ethan in a massive, overwhelming barrage.
The six staff members screamed and covered their heads.
Ethan didn't move. He didn't summon a Sling Ring portal. He didn't even drop into a martial arts stance. He simply raised his right hand and flicked two fingers.
Protego.
A massive, invisible dome of hardened spatial magic erupted around him. The dark energy bolts slammed into it and completely fizzled out, like raindrops hitting a windshield. The barrage didn't even make Ethan blink.
"My turn," Ethan said.
He swiped his hand through the air, forming a sharp, triangular Eldritch rune.
Sectumsempra.
Invisible, razor-sharp spatial blades tore across the room. There was no glowing light, no warningājust the sickening sound of flesh and fabric tearing. The front row of twenty zealots suddenly screamed as deep, bloody gashes appeared across their chests, arms, and legs. Their dark magic shields were bypassed completely, sliced open like wet paper. They collapsed in a writhing, bleeding heap on the polished floor.
The remaining attackers froze, their arrogant sneers replaced by sudden, paralyzing shock. What kind of magic was that?!
"You guys call yourselves dark sorcerers?" Ethan scoffed, slowly descending the stairs. "You borrow a little purple fire from a giant floating head in space and think you're the bad guys? You like dark magic? Let me show you what real dark magic looks like."
Ethan thrust his hand forward. He bypassed the standard orange Eldritch energy and pulled pure, raw intent from his core.
Cruciatus.
A web of crackling, blood-red lightning erupted from his fingertips. It didn't blast the zealots backward. Instead, it latched onto a dozen of them like a parasite.
The reaction was instantaneous. The affected sorcerers dropped to the marble floor, their bodies violently convulsing. They didn't just scream; they shrieked, clawing at their own faces and tearing at their robes as their nervous systems were subjected to pure, unadulterated agony. The pain was so absolute that two of them simply passed out from the shock, only to be shocked awake again by the spell.
The leader's jaw dropped. "What... what is that?! That's not the Vishanti! Fall back! Retreat!"
"Retreat?" Ethan laughed, a cold, unhinged sound. He snapped his fingers.
Crack! The shattered remnants of the front doors instantly repaired themselves, slamming shut and glowing with an impenetrable, shimmering lock.
"Nobody is leaving until somebody pays for my jeans," Ethan said.
Panic officially set in. The zealots abandoned all strategy. Twenty of them fired blasts of corrosive Dormammu magic directly at Ethan's chest.
Ethan just smiled. He didn't dodge. He cast an Protego, but he inverted the geometry. The purple blasts hit his invisible shield and immediately ricocheted right back into the crowd, blowing five zealots through a wooden wall and into the parlor.
A massive, hulking zealot tried to blindside Ethan, leaping from the balcony with a conjured axe.
Ethan didn't even look at him. He just pointed a finger upward.
Transmogrification.
The Eldritch runes wrapped around the falling man in mid-air. His scream morphed into a wet, bizarre croak. His bones snapped, his flesh melted and rearranged itself, and by the time he hit the marble floor, he wasn't a man anymore.
He was a giant, slimy, pulsating toad the size of a golden retriever. The toad let out a confused ribbit, spitting up a piece of its own black robe.
The remaining zealots stared at the toad, their minds completely breaking. This wasn't a fight. This was a horror movie, and they were trapped in the basement with the monster.
"He turned Karl into a toad!" one of the zealots shrieked, dropping his weapon and scrambling backward like a crab. "He's a demon! Open the doors! Open the doors!"
"You guys really lack discipline," Ethan sighed, walking casually into the center of the panicked mob.
It was a total slaughter. Ethan didn't even break a sweat. He Apparated (Crack!) behind a group trying to break a window, grabbing two of their heads and slamming them together so hard their skulls cracked. He hit another with a modified Expelliarmus that blasted the man backward with enough kinetic force to embed him halfway into a stone pillar.
He turned three more zealots into literal oversized cockroaches, watching with disgust as they scuttled into the corners of the room.
Within exactly three minutes, the grand foyer of the New York Sanctum looked like a chaotic modern art exhibit of pain. Over fifty zealots were either unconscious, convulsing on the floor from nerve damage, glued to the walls, or currently eating flies.
Only the leader was left standing, his knees shaking so hard he could barely stay upright. The purple mark on his forehead had completely faded, his connection to the Dark Dimension severed by pure, primal fear.
Ethan slowly walked up to him. His charcoal shirt wasn't even wrinkled.
"Please," the leader whimpered, dropping to his knees and raising his hands in surrender. "Mercy. I yield. We yield!"
Ethan looked down at him, his expression completely blank. Then he looked down at his ruined jeans.
Smack!
Ethan backhanded the man across the face with enough force to spin him 360 degrees. The leader hit the floor out cold, several teeth clattering onto the marble.