Chapter 201: Air Combat

Facing the three Swedish Short-Snouts huddled together, Fleur and Elena didn't act rashly. Harry had briefly looked at the information about dragons; the Short-Snout's magic was very strong, and most spells couldn't work on them. Moreover, this kind of dragon not only had a very strong sense of territory but also had very keen senses; whether it was invisibility or stealth, it was difficult to muddle through easily.

However, Fleur and Elena adopted a particularly creative method; not only did the audience cheer loudly for it, but Harry also had to admit that it was a genius idea: they transformed the stones on the ground into hounds to attract the dragons' attention.

The two girls lay quietly in a place not too far from the eggs, while the Newfoundland hounds they transformed using Transfiguration swaggered and provoked the dragons in front of them. This long-haired and long-nosed animal easily angered a Short-Snout; it chased the hounds and spat fire, and then, not paying attention, crashed into another dragon's territory.

Using this move, the two girls only needed to hide on the side and manipulate the hounds, which led the three dragons to start being at daggers drawn with each other. After they confronted each other for a while, they began to attack each other, which was exactly the result the champions were happy to see; the auditorium erupted in happy cheers.

Just after the three eggs guarded by the Swedish Short-Snouts also turned blue, Fleur raised her hand high and shouted to the judges' bench: "We don't have a good way to pass the remaining dragons, we apply to stop here."

"It doesn't matter, you have already done very well," Madame Maxime said gently, and then she turned to the others on the judges' bench. "For students, having the courage to challenge powerful opponents is commendable, but being able to recognize one's own limits is even more important. We would rather see children seek help from teachers when encountering difficulties than see them recklessly put themselves in danger, right?"

"And," Donald reminded, "they didn't bring any weapons, relying only on their wands."

"But we didn't forbid them from bringing them either," Karkaroff retorted maliciously.

Finally, the five judges gave their scores, and Fleur and Elena obtained a total score of 74 points. Harry noticed that the score given by Dumbledore was 7 points, only deducting one point; it seemed he also quite appreciated the performance of the two.

"Let's go," Cedric stood up. "It's our turn to go on stage."

"Do we need to bring our brooms?" Harry asked. "Or summon them later using the Summoning Charm?"

"Er, bring them," Cedric said somewhat awkwardly. "My broom was borrowed for me by Donna; I am not very familiar with it."

Cedric was holding a "Snow Dragon 1080," which was a French broom model; its performance was slightly inferior to the Firebolt, but it should be about on par with the Nimbus 2001, which was enough for what they were about to do.

Harry walked through the passage and came into the Dragon Nest full of broken stones. Then he took a deep breath, lifted his leg over the broom, kicked the ground, and soared into the air.

"This is just another competition," Cedric's confident voice came. Harry looked at the audience shrinking on the ground and felt the wind blowing through his hair. He realized that after returning to the place where he was like a fish in water, those tensions and fears disappeared instantly; presumably, Cedric was the same.

"Let's deal with the Fireball first," Harry said loudly. "I'll lure it, and you're responsible for shooting it down."

"Must we shoot it down?" Cedric shouted. "I can go and paint the dragon eggs."

"We must perform brilliantly enough!" Harry said while doing a somersault to warm up. "We brought brooms, Fleur didn't bring anything; we must achieve more results."

"Good." As soon as Cedric's voice came, Harry couldn't wait to start diving.

The Fireball was originally watching them on the ground, but Harry rushed to its face quickly, which gave it a fright. Then, he threw a Spark Charm at the Fireball.

The Spark Charm had no other effect besides angering the dragon, but Harry only needed to anger it at this time, and the Spark Charm was the spell with the least magical consumption. In fact, if it weren't for the sake of watchability, he originally intended to throw stones.

The Fireball spat fire at Harry instinctively, but he was prepared. With a well-timed side barrel roll, he then started to climb again. He deliberately flew toward the sun, and the afternoon sun indeed interfered with the Fireball's vision; its aim was very poor—perhaps this also had something to do with Elena's Conjunctivitis Curse.

While Harry was spinning and ascending, he kept an eye on the dragon's movements through the newly installed mirror. It indeed took off and chased Harry, but Cedric bit its tail, preparing to launch an attack from a suitable angle. Soon, taking advantage of the moment Harry dodged the fireball again, he hit the dragon's tail with a spell.

A wound deep enough to see the bone appeared on the Fireball's tail immediately. Under the pain, its flight movements immediately became deformed. Harry didn't intend to let go of this opportunity; after a rapid climb, he immediately returned to the original route with a small-radius turn. Now he was just facing the dragon's neck; Harry raised his wand without hesitation and began to chant.

The blood vessel on the side of the dragon's neck was cut open by Harry's spell immediately, and hot dragon blood sprayed out. The Fireball wailed and flew toward the distance. Thanks to the dragon's strong physical fitness, the blood stopped quickly, and the wound began to scab over. However, it wouldn't dare to come and find trouble with Harry and Cedric for a short time.

The audience erupted in cheers one after another; dealing with the dragon so cleanly in a two-on-one situation and also demonstrating superb flying skills was quite brilliant.

"Time to deal with the Green dragons," Harry said. "They look like they just woke up."

"One for each of us," Cedric said. "Then before they react, suddenly change opponents."

"Good idea," Harry kicked the broom and started a new round of diving. He could clearly see that on the Green dragon's ferocious head, a pair of bright yellow big eyes were still a bit drowsy, which made Harry think of an interesting idea. He raised his wand and chanted: "Aguamenti!"

The Green dragon was dazed by a ladle of cold water poured on its head; it shook its head blankly, and the auditorium let out bursts of laughter. But Harry didn't have much time to mock it; he hurriedly did a circling climb. Sure enough, the Green dragon, having reacted, looked very angry and took off almost without thinking, biting Harry's tail tightly.

Harry accelerated against the whistling wind, but he seemed to hear Cedric shouting. Harry wanted to look at him, but a flame grazed past his side, which forced him to focus on operating. When he cast his gaze toward the mirror, he suddenly guessed the reason for Cedric's shouting: two Green dragons were rushing toward him from left and right together.

This wasn't difficult, Harry thought secretly; just pretend to be two stupid Beaters. He quickly pulled up the broom handle. When the broom tilted slightly, he stopped accelerating and instead let it follow the inertia to continue turning. In the gap of two to three seconds, Harry was almost stationary in the air. The two dragons flying at full speed were almost in the blink of an eye about to catch up to him and eat Harry into their mouths.

But just at this moment, the non-working broom carried Harry and fell toward the ground abruptly under the action of gravity. The Green dragons missed him immediately, and Harry, who raised his head again, could easily see their soft bellies.

Harry hesitated slightly. He felt that if the Sectumsempra spell pierced the Green dragons' bellies, and they were also in high-speed flight, he really worried that the Green dragons would throw out their internal organs.

After this moment of hesitation, his spell only hit the Green dragon's hind leg, which instead aroused its ferocity. But fortunately, Cedric launched a perfect attack from the flank; his spell directly sliced open the drum membrane on the other Green dragon's wing. An out-of-control Green dragon inevitably fell toward its companion. When they readjusted their posture in a mess, the two shot out spells together again.

The effect of the new round of attacks was significant; Harry hit the root of the dragon's wing, and Cedric directly cut off the other dragon's tail. The dragon with the injured wing almost lost its ability to fly; it struggled to flap the other wing to make itself fall slower; the dragon missing its tail also fell toward the ground staggeringly because it couldn't maintain balance.

After the two Green dragons landed, they didn't have the heart to return to their territory, just lying quietly in place, waiting for the wounds to heal themselves. Cedric was able to calmly turn the dragon eggs into a slightly glowing orange amidst the cheers of the audience that were higher than one wave after another.

Harry felt a bit tired; he realized that the consumption of the Sectumsempra spell was actually not small. He estimated he could cast three or four more spells, which, although not much, should be enough to deal with the three Swedish Short-Snouts. Harry hoped to rely on his own strength to complete as much content as possible.

"I'll go first, watch my flock of pigeons," Cedric shouted this and accelerated to fly toward the Swedish Short-Snout's Dragon Nest. Harry soon understood his idea; since the Short-Snouts would be attracted by the hounds, releasing a flock of pigeons in the sky using Transfiguration would be a good way to distract them, providing Harry with an opportunity to attack.

Cedric swayed past two Short-Snouts and flew toward the third. Fortunately, the fire spat by one of the dragons during the chase happened to hit the third dragon that was resting. The three dragons that had just fought were suddenly in infighting again.

Taking advantage of the two dragons wrestling together, Cedric quickly sprinkled a handful of breadcrumbs from his pocket and used Transfiguration to turn them into white pigeons flying in all directions. Taking this opportunity, Harry quickly used two spells in succession, slashing the wing membranes on the Short-Snout's two wings, making it lose its ability to stay in the air, and it could only glide angrily to find a place to land.

Cedric, who was liberated from the pursuit, glanced at the remaining two dragons fighting in the air, and then he flew toward the dragon eggs without looking back. Harry roughly understood his idea; indeed, going back to dye them now was more reasonable. Moreover, shooting Sectumsempra twice in a row also caused him to feel dizzy. Harry flew slowly toward a farther dragon egg with his broom; he wanted to take this opportunity to rest a little. ===== CHAPTER 202 =====