The judges in the referee's booth looked at the broom that had fallen onto the stage in front of them, their expressions gradually changing from confusion to astonishment.
Among the six judges, Dumbledore seemed to have anticipated such a result and just shook his head helplessly.
As for the remaining five judges, Ms. Maxime, Karkaroff, Professor Hicks, Mr. Crouch and Bagman, they all widened their eyes at the same time, looking at Dracula who was floating in the air without any support.
"This... This is not a flying broom at all!"
Bagman jumped from the commentary booth to the referee's booth at some point, and picked up the broom that Dracula had thrown down with a look of shock on his face. "This is just an ordinary broom, it can't fly at all!"
After hearing Bagman's exclamation, the other judges' expressions changed again.
It turns out that this security guard doesn't need a flying broom to fly, and this broom is just for show in front of them
Karkaroff, who had just questioned whether Dracula could control the flying broom, now wished he could find a crack in the ground to crawl into... He felt his face being slapped.
"How about it, judges? Do you think I can control the flying broom well now?" Dracula crossed his arms and looked at Ms. Maxime and Karkaroff with a smile.
The two principals didn't know how to answer, but Professor Hicks beside them coughed twice, which helped them out:
"Ahem... Professor Dracula, it looks like the warriors are coming out soon, do you want to go take a look?"
Dracula turned his head and saw that the first warrior had indeed walked out of the tent.
It was Cedric Diggory, and the whole audience burst into applause.
The young wizards of Hogwarts waved the yellow flag representing Hufflepuff House vigorously. The cheers, screams and applause merged together and even formed a momentum like a tsunami.
Charlie Weiss, a dragon trainer from the Romanian Fire Dragon Sanctuary, dragged a fire dragon with silver and blue scales into the competition venue and tied it firmly to the ground with many iron chains.
Bagman returned to the commentary booth and pointed his wand at his throat, broadcasting his voice in all directions:
"The first warrior to come on stage is Mr. Cedric Diggory from Hogwarts. His opponent is a Swedish short-nosed dragon... Everyone can look at the feet of the dragon, where a golden egg has been placed."
"Now, professionals have tied the dragon's four legs to the ground to prevent it from breaking free. The dragons participating in this competition are all female fire dragons. Now they have all been cast with a confusion spell, thinking that the golden egg is their own dragon egg..."
"And what Mr. Diggory has to do is to snatch the golden egg from under the dragon's feet! The judges will give him scores based on his specific performance..."
Dracula's attention was indeed attracted by the game that was about to begin.
He flapped his wings, which turned transparent so that no one else could see him, and came to the top of the arena. He looked at Cedric with interest, wondering how he would face a fire dragon.
A shrill whistle sounded amid the noisy crowd, and all the dragon trainers and staff left the arena, leaving this space for the participating warriors.
The audience suddenly fell into silence, and everyone stared at Cedric—
Almost no one present had ever witnessed a situation where a person had to fight against a giant like a fire dragon alone.
They all stared intently, wanting to see whether the warrior on the field would live up to expectations and successfully get the golden egg, or would be defeated by the fire dragon instead
Cedric stood at the entrance to the field fence and took a deep breath.
Then, he suddenly pulled out his wand and pointed it at a huge stone nearby.
“Vera Verto!”
A spell of transfiguration came out of his mouth.
The next moment, the stone, which was nearly half the size of a fire dragon, quickly changed its shape, from an angular stone to a rounded shape, and turned into a big dog made of rock.
"Nice Transfiguration!" Bagman shouted from the commentary booth. "Mr. Diggory used a very clever method to distract the dragon..."
The rock dog rushed towards the Swedish short-nosed dragon, but suddenly changed direction before entering the range of the fire dragon's claws.
The short-nosed dragon's attention was indeed attracted by the big dog. It raised its claws wrapped in chains and wanted to chase the big dog.
Obviously, these chains only limit the fire dragons' range of movement and cannot directly immobilize them.
While the Swedish short-nosed dragon was chasing the big dog, Cedric cast a speed-increasing spell on himself and rushed towards the dragon's nest where the golden eggs were stored.
"Oh, beautiful, he really distracted the dragon... wait, the dragon was so concerned about its eggs that it gave up on the big dog and pounced on Mr. Diggory!" Bagman exclaimed.
On the field, the Swedish short-nosed dragon spewed out a dazzling blue flame from its nostrils, directly covering Cedric!
Above the stadium, Dracula's eyes focused and he subconsciously lowered his body a little, ready to go over to save the situation at any time.
At the critical moment, Cedric used Transfiguration again, turned over a small piece of land under his feet, squeezed it around himself to form an earth wall, and rolled to the side with the force generated when the earth wall was formed.
The blue flames sprayed all over the earth wall, turning the wet wall surface into a solidified, hard and charred block, and several huge cracks appeared on the wall.
There were screams and gasps from the audience, and Bagman's commentary began:
"Oh my, this is dangerous, too dangerous... I have to admit, this move is really dangerous!"
Cedric had no time to care about the commentary and the audience's reaction. He hid behind another low wall and behaved more cautiously.
He tried to reduce his presence as much as possible, and kept waving his wand, allowing various products of Transfiguration to swim continuously, in order to influence the Swedish Short-nosed Dragon's mind and wait for an opportunity to take away the golden egg.
About fifteen minutes later, after Cedric had been struggling with the dragon, he finally seized a golden opportunity.
Accompanied by a deafening cheer, Cedric finally took advantage of the fire dragon's attention being attracted by another big rock dog, quietly passed its defense, and took the golden egg back from the dragon's nest.
The Swedish short-nosed dragon then realized that its eggs had been stolen. It let out angry roars and bursts of dazzling blue flames spewed out of its nose.
At the same time, seven or eight dragon trainers from the Romanian Fire Dragon Reserve rushed in from around the venue, cast various calming spells on the fire dragon, and then took it away from the arena.
"Mr. Diggory did a great job!" Bagman shouted at the top of his voice. "Now for the judges to give their scores!"
Dumbledore did not shy away from the question and took the lead in holding up a sign with the number "9" written on it.
Nine out of ten is a pretty high score.
"Mr. Diggory's Transfiguration was excellent. Professor McGonagall must be pleased that she taught such an excellent student." Dumbledore commented, "If the start was more stable, perhaps the efficiency would be higher."
Professor Hicks smiled and also gave it a score of "9".
Then Bagman, Mr. Crouch and Ms. Maxim all raised the "8" sign at the same time.
Overall, it can be seen that Cedric's excellent transformation skills were indeed recognized by the judges.
However, Durmstrang's headmaster, Yngol Karkaroff, held up a sign with the number "6" on it.
After seeing his score clearly, there was a burst of booing from the audience.
Many young wizards at Hogwarts were loudly denouncing his injustice. Fred and George even took out a loud speaker from somewhere and spread their protests throughout the stadium:
"Karkaroff is corrupt and has committed corruption...Karkaroff is corrupt and has committed corruption..."
They kept repeating this sentence, which added a bit of humor to the solemn atmosphere.
"I scored completely fairly!" Karkaroff's face flushed with anger, and he loudly retorted to the audience, "He was almost hit by the dragon's flames. This is definitely a major mistake!"
In the end, Cedric scored 48 points, which was pretty good overall. At least he smiled and waved to the audience with satisfaction.
"Okay, please come to the audience and take a break..." Bagman said to him, "Mr. Diggory, please keep your golden egg safe - the clue to the next game is hidden in the golden egg."
"Very good, there are four more warriors to come... The next one to go is Miss Delacour, and her opponent is a Welsh green dragon!"
As the whistle sounded again, Furong appeared at the entrance of the stadium.
As Furong appeared on the stage, many boys couldn't help but cheer. If the Warriors were not too far away from the audience, they might not have been able to control their expressions.
Dracula floated in the sky, observing everyone's reactions with great interest.
He saw that Ron, with his fiery red hair, couldn't help but look like a pig, while Hermione beside him rolled her eyes.
Unlike the previous game, where Cedric's endless transformations were spectacular, Furong's operations seemed much more monotonous and boring.
She was pale, raised her hands nervously, and whispered a long, dull spell.
As Furong murmured her spell, the heated atmosphere in the audience gradually calmed down, and even the Welsh green dragon that was glaring at her gradually fell asleep.
"Hypnotic spell, very creative approach..."
Even Bagman was affected by the quiet atmosphere in the stadium and spoke in a low voice, just enough for others to hear.
Hypnosis is a continuous process. Furong kept chanting for nearly ten minutes before finally making the Welsh Green Dragon fall to the ground, snoring loudly.
A little cold sweat dripped down Furong's forehead. She began to chant a spell while moving towards the golden egg.
However, just when she was about to get the golden egg, a green flame spurted out of the fire dragon's mouth, perhaps because the fire dragon was not completely hypnotized or its subconscious was still guarding its egg.
Furong reacted quickly and dodged to the side.
But the flame covered too large an area, and her skirt was still set on fire by the fire dragon.
Furong subconsciously thought that the fire dragon was about to wake up, and she lost her composure for a moment. She was in a panic for a long time before she used the water-making spell to extinguish the sparks on her skirt.
Fortunately, the Welsh green dragon seemed to be truly hypnotized and did not take any further action.
Furong finally recovered from her panic, picked up the golden egg and left the arena.
"Oh, she succeeded! I couldn't even breathe just now!"
There was a loud cheer from the audience, and Bagman, who had been silent for a long time, finally laughed out loud and returned to his previous style of loud commentary.
Next it is the judges' turn to give scores.
Although Furong's overall response was reasonable, she was a bit flustered when facing the fire dragon's breath, which was a big loss of points.
So Dumbledore and Bagman gave 8 points, Professor Hicks and Mr. Crouch gave 7 points, and Karkaroff looked at Madam Maxime, hesitated, and gave the same 6 points as Cedric.
Ms. Maxime gritted her teeth and finally held up her sign: it had a big number "9" on it.
In the end, Furong temporarily ranked second with 45 points.
The next to appear was Krum, and the opponent he drew was the colorful Australian egg white eye.
As soon as Krum appeared, he quickly raised his wand and cast a spell at the dragon's eyes.
"Very bold!" Bagman shouted. "This is the first time in the three games we have seen that a warrior directly chooses to attack the dragon!"
The Australian White Eye's heartless eyes were suddenly attacked, and it let out a roar of pain that reached the sky. It flapped its wings continuously, stomping back and forth on the ground, shaking the chains and making them clank.
"Oh, I just consulted Professor Dumbledore beside me, and he told me that Mr. Krum used an eye-disease spell." Bagman explained loudly, "The dragon's body is covered with tough scales, which are highly resistant to magic... But dragon eyes are different!"
"A fire dragon's eyes are the most vulnerable part of its body. If you can hit a fire dragon's eyes with the Eye Disease Curse, it will most likely be in so much pain that it won't care about your little moves..."
Just then, Bagman exclaimed:
"Oh no! This Australian egg-eye crushed its own egg... Mr. Krum got the broken egg, I don't know what the result is..."
Originally, the audience thought that the game was going to end like this, but the next moment, the Australian Egg White Eyes suddenly shook his head.
Then, as if it had gotten rid of the influence of the eye curse, it became completely quiet and stared coldly at Krum with its childless eyes.
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