Chapter 203: Dragon and Man

When Renata put a Horntail into the sight, the 12.7mm caliber ammunition easily pierced the dragon's tough skin, creating a visible splash of blood. Then, with the assistance of the wheeled gun mount, Renata steadily controlled the constantly jumping muzzle with those seemingly thin arms. The consecutive hits quickly knocked the Horntail off balance. Although the dragon's tough muscles tightly jammed the bullet heads, preventing it from dying immediately, the ensuing metal storm quickly broke its tendons and tore its wings. After several bullets aimed at the dragon's head shot into its eye sockets, this dragon, covered in blood, finally lost its ability to stay in the air and fell uncontrollably.

When Harry watched this scene, he was still in shock and hadn't come back to his senses. However, reason gradually helped Harry find himself. Renata must have undergone a lot of relevant training, he thought. If she knew every dimension of every part of this machine gun—even the thickness of the ear pieces and the arc of the chamfer—by heart, transforming a machine gun with Transfiguration didn't seem completely impossible. Moreover, her skilled shooting techniques also corroborated this conjecture.

A loud bang came; the dragon she shot down fell heavily to the ground, and the splashed dragon blood stained the dragon egg on the side with dots of scarlet. Even though it was a thick-skinned, tenacious magical creature, Harry also believed that this dragon had no possibility of survival.

Renata, who was getting into the swing of things, quickly hit a Green dragon with a burst of bullets. When it had to slow down its flight speed and descend slowly because its wings were riddled with holes, Renata used a burst of precise point shooting to almost completely break its neck.

Harry noticed Deng Buliduo stood up, his face looking exceptionally ugly. Indeed, even for Harry, who had just cut off a dragon's tail with a sword, he felt this method was too cruel. Although, if Renata didn't shoot down these dragons, Krum's death in the air would only be a matter of time, but Harry felt from the bottom of his heart that the subsequent shots aimed at the neck were truly unnecessary.

Just when they were brewing dissatisfaction, Renata turned the muzzle expressionlessly, and this cold and efficient killing machine continued to spit out metal chunks at a speed of 820 meters per second, beating another Horntail to death in the sky. Then, just when the Fireball finally realized that the real enemy was on the ground and prepared to turn its target, Renata immediately chose it as the next target. The incoming large-caliber bullets directly pierced the dragon's half-open giant mouth, first piercing the dragon's throat, and then broke its skull, stirring its brain into a mess.

Krum quickly darted to the side because the incoming bullets steadily hit a Short-Snout that was chasing him. A series of wounds at the root of the wing made it unable to maintain its flight state, rolling and falling downward. Then, taking advantage of Krum leaving the vicinity of the muzzle, Renata again used precise point shooting to hit the last Short-Snout's eye, followed by a burst of fire that blew off its skull. Even though it was far away, Harry could see the white brain matter falling in the sky, which made him feel a wave of nausea.

Krum stopped in the air; Harry guessed he should have breathed a sigh of relief; after all, he was attracting the attention of six dragons simultaneously at the beginning. Next, they only needed to continue dyeing the dragon eggs, so this combination could also get the full 60 points of dyeing points, and only one point would be deducted for Krum's broom. Harry felt that the judges probably didn't recognize the ammunition belt Renata took out, nor would they necessarily treat these things as part of the weapons.

But just when everyone breathed a sigh of relief and the auditorium, which had been silent, finally began to have some restlessness, Renata did another terrible thing. After she shot down the falling Short-Snout with follow-up fire, she took the opportunity to level the muzzle of the heavy machine gun and began to fire at the dragons that had been beaten to lose their flight ability by Harry and were lying weakly on the ground. A Green dragon that was already injured had nowhere to hide, and in the blink of an eye, it was hit by dozens of bullets; dragon blood spread quietly on the rocky ground.

"Enough!" Deng Buliduo shouted, but Renata turned a deaf ear and continued to shoot the Horntail that had its tail cut off by Harry to death in place in a near-slaughtering manner.

"I said, enough!" Deng Buliduo couldn't help but pull out his wand. Renata seemed to realize something; she quickly turned the muzzle and used a rough but powerful burst to beat the Short-Snout that had injured wings and couldn't fly to death on the spot.

Finally, when she aimed at the last remaining blind Horntail, the bullets hit a transparent wall. Deng Buliduo used a tough Shield Charm to protect the dragon's life.

Renata stopped shooting; the machine gun in her hand began to disintegrate, the parts fell to the ground and turned back into stones, and the barrel part turned into sand, drifting away in the cold winter wind.

"Why, continue shooting after the dragon lost its ability to resist?" Deng Buliduo said in a very severe tone. Harry had only heard this tone when he confronted old Malfoy, at which time there were still faint blue flames in his eyes.

"Why stop shooting?" Renata asked back. "If the competition allows killing dragons, why can't I do so?"

"Ah, it seems Durmstrang doesn't have Care of Magical Creatures class," Madame Maxime said, pretending to be relaxed; she seemed to want to ease this tense atmosphere.

"I have never learned to care for dragons; I only learned to slay dragons," Renata said coldly.

"But we are humans; humans must have the most basic compassion," Deng Buliduo's tone also eased a little, but it was still very serious. "You cannot wantonly use power to abuse the weak; this is very important for wizards, especially wizards with talent."

"There is no meaning in saying these things; let's score," Karkaroff said. "Now it can be considered that the competition is over; I am prepared to give her eight points; this beautiful Transfiguration is very imaginative and quite difficult, and Krum also flew great."

"Deng Buliduo, you can of course give her zero points, on the grounds of violating the moral principles you believe in or something," Vaskov said slowly. "But the real world is not run by morality; according to the rules, Renata and Krum have already obtained at least 60 points; they have already passed."

"You look very proud, old man?" Tang Tang Nade retorted with dissatisfaction. "We haven't deducted the points for carrying weapons yet, and for the bullets needed for this machine gun, I think every bullet can be counted as an independent weapon."

"I have a necessity to explain this Transfiguration to everyone," Tang Tang Nade stood up, using his wand to top his throat. The amplified voice said to everyone, "Transfiguration can indeed transform exquisite, even operable mechanical structures, but the things it transforms cannot be secondary transformed. Just like you cannot transform food, nor can you kill animals transformed from inorganic matter to eat meat. And the fact is, this machine gun—this Muggle weapon is called a machine gun; it doesn't exert power alone, just like bows and crossbows need to use arrows, machine guns also need to add bullets, and bullets are a kind of magical Muggle creation that Transfiguration cannot transform, or even if transformed, cannot exert effect."

When the audience was whispering, Tang Tang Nade said loudly, "So, I think we should deduct the points for Renata carrying bullets, and every bullet exerts effect independently, so we should deduct one point for every bullet fired."

The auditorium suddenly became lively, and Vaskov began to argue with Tang Tang Nade; Deng Buliduo just watched them both coldly.

"Everyone, be quiet," Madame Maxime said loudly. "Prince Mountbatten has something to say."

"I think, just like arrows can be put together as a whole quiver, Renata's bullets can also be considered as a whole," he said. "For these bullets, I think we only need to deduct one point. However, because the falling dragon crushed a dragon egg, the dyeing points they obtained should only be 54 points."

"But in that case, the seven swords used by Harry should also be counted as a whole," Tang Tang Nade protested.

"No, every sword used by Harry is a sharp treasure sword, which is different from bullets," Prince Mountbatten explained slowly. "A single bullet cannot be used as a weapon, but a single treasure sword can, so Harry's weapon points still need to be deducted by seven points. Now, everyone, score."

The scoring results presented a very dramatic polarization; Deng Buliduo only gave two points, while Tang Tang Nade gave zero points directly. Karkaroff and Vaskov gave the full eight points, while Madame Maxime gave six points, the same as the score Deng Buliduo gave Harry.

In this regard, Harry felt Madame Maxime did a good job; being too particular about morality and being too particular about results were both wrong. Because the process violated moral principles and made the originally perfect result have flaws, this was the way of evaluation he considered reasonable. Moreover, dragons were a kind of dangerous magical animal; if the Triwizard Tournament tacitly allowed champions to die accidentally, there was no reason to guarantee the life safety of dragons, Harry thought so.

In this way, Renata and Krum's final score would be 76 points, ranking second. Harry also felt a little fortunate; when the Seven Deadly Sins were restless and wanted to kill the dragons, fortunately, the kindness in his nature stopped these overly powerful weapons. Otherwise, he might not have been able to avoid being criticized by Deng Buliduo.

"The scores of the first round indicate that all combinations have passed the test, and the order of ranking will affect the clues you obtain," Madame Maxime said. "For the first-place Phoenix Order combination, I need to regretfully tell you that in order to increase the watchability of the competition and balance the strength between champions, you will only be able to obtain the copper dragon egg with the most vague clues."

"And for the second-place Soviet Advance combination, you will obtain the silver dragon egg containing clear clues," she announced. "For the third-place Judas Oath combination, you will obtain the golden dragon egg containing detailed content."

"Oh, so that's where it's waiting," Cedric said dully.

"I know now," Harry looked at Elena and Fleur, who were smiling very cunningly. "You were clearly able to pass the Horntails; it turns out it was for this." ===== CHAPTER 204 =====