Volume 5: The Burning Golden Flame Chapter 342 Valley Entrance
"The people from Palmer Sports Magic Item Supply wrote to complain that our final payment has not been settled, and urged us to send them the remaining Galleons as soon as possible since the competition has started."
On the second night after the first competition officially began, Matthew was in the lounge specially prepared for him by Voldemort in Hogwarts Castle, listening to his assistant reporting to him about the preparations for the competition.
"Let them wait for two more days until the first competition is completely over. It will be impossible for them to be owed the balance. Also, why have I never heard of this sports magic company before? Shouldn't the official sports department be responsible for the supply of competition items?"
Faced with Matthew's question, the assistant looked embarrassed, but finally answered.
"Regarding the competition equipment for the first event, it was Mr. Rahman who took the initiative to take over the matter. He said that this Palmo Sports Magic Item Supply Company was owned by his friend and the quality of the goods it provided was guaranteed."
Matthew frowned.
"These Middle Eastern people are like this, they want to do business no matter where. Why didn't you tell me this earlier?"
"You were not in charge of the competition procurement before, sir. Of course, if you need to research this information now, I can prepare it now."
"You don't need to prepare for these things now. Instead, you'd better remind Rahman early tomorrow morning. If something goes wrong in the first game, he can just wait for my impeachment in the federation."
…
The place that Cedric brought Jon to was indeed a remote area at the very edge of the Forbidden Forest.
In front of them, the location of the Ukrainian Iron Belly happened to be in the direction of the entrance to a valley. If they wanted to enter the valley, they had to pass through the territory of this fire dragon, otherwise they could only climb the steep rocks.
For humans with nimble limbs, climbing is not an impossible task. In addition, wizards can use magic to help, so as long as they spend some time, they can avoid the fire dragon and climb out from the other side of the valley.
But this is not the case for the horse people. Their upper bodies are undoubtedly those of humans, but their lower bodies look exactly like horses. Their four hooves may allow them to walk briskly on flat ground, but it is almost impossible for them to climb rocks.
"There are three exits like this. In addition to this one being occupied by an Ironbelly, the other two locations are guarded by another Ukrainian Ironbelly and a Norwegian Ridgeback respectively."
While Jon was observing the terrain, Cedric also told Jon everything he had discovered here last night.
"There are only three exits, and they are all blocked..."
Jon pinched his chin and looked through the moonlight at the Ukrainian Iron Belly lying not far away, obviously skeptical of such a coincidence.
But despite his doubts, Jon did not give up on the action he promised Cedric.
He looked at the iron belly and slowly pulled out his wand.
"If you want to open this exit, you must at least make this dragon leave its current location and then make it unable to move."
Cedric looked at the huge creature under the moonlight and swallowed subconsciously.
"Last night, I tried to lure it away from here, and then contact Firenze to have him lead the remaining centaurs to escape from the valley, but the dragon seemed lazy, and my spell had no effect on it at all. It didn't even have the interest to open its eyes and look at me."
There was clear frustration in his tone, but Jon wasn't surprised.
The magic immunity attribute of dragon skin ranks top among all magical beasts. For example, the scorpion-tailed beast with a human head and a lion body that he chased away during the day has always known for its highly magic-resistant skin defense. John's enhanced version of the Shadowless Sword could cut ordinary magical beasts into pieces, but it only caused some superficial injuries to it.
As for the fire dragons, especially the Ukrainian Ironbelly, which is the largest dragon and the most famous for its defense, its resistance to magic is only stronger than that of the Manticore. Even if Jon ignored the fact that the referee would use the Flashback Spell on his wand after the game to check the impact of the spells he had used, and directly used the Killing Spell on this behemoth, he would not be able to kill it.
So since forceful tactics didn't work, Jon could only try to outsmart them.
"You said earlier that in addition to the two Ukrainian Ironbellies, there was another entrance occupied by a Norwegian Ridgeback?"
Cedric nodded.
"right."
"Come on, let's go check out that Norwegian Ridgeback."
With Hoss as a means of transportation, they quickly arrived at the other side of the valley. There was also a fire dragon lying at the entrance here, but compared with the Ukrainian Iron Belly, the Norwegian Ridgeback looked much smaller.
The Norwegian Ridgeback is similar in size to the Hungarian Dendrocchus and is one of the most violent dragons in the world. However, compared with the Ukrainian Ironbelly, although their size is not small, they are not overly large and fleshy.
If he had to decide on a target to attack, Jon felt that this ridgeback dragon was the best choice.
However, even if he was dealing with a ridgeback dragon, Jon didn't plan to use force. This afternoon, when he was dealing with other fire dragons to collect the Golden Snitch, he had already experienced how strong the defense of these fire dragons was. Ordinary spells would have no effect on them at all. The only defensive weakness of the fire dragons was their eyes.
As long as the spell can hit their eyes, it can bypass the thick dragon hide and allow the magic to work directly on them.
So, Jon plans to use some tricks.
He and Cedric hid behind a tree and began to wave their wands.
"Expecto Patronus."
Silver light gathered around him, and soon a lion and a little badger quietly appeared in front of him.
Cedric's eyes widened as he watched Jon summon his patronus. He had heard many rumors about Jon in Hogwarts Castle.
Some say he was Dumbledore's top criminal, and his favorite thing was to kill wizard students with bloodlines and then keep their skulls as collections.
Some people also said that Jon Green was addicted to killing people with the Unforgivable Curse, and he would feel uncomfortable if he didn't kill someone with the Killing Curse every day.
What's more, some people say that he is actually an adult wizard who is using Polyjuice Potion all the time , pretending to be a child, and is actually a tool used by Dumbledore to pretend.
Not everyone in Hogwarts Castle had an independent way of thinking like Cedric. In fact, he seldom read the news in the Daily Prophet in private. Instead, he collected newspapers from other magical societies in Europe and learned a lot of opinions that were different from those in the UK.
Cedric knew that Jon was not as evil as the rumors said. The summoning of these two Patronuses alone was enough to prove his character, because no dark wizard could successfully learn the Patronus Charm. As he guessed, none of the professors in the entire Hogwarts Castle could use it.
But these two patronuses still brought great shock to Cedric. Not only was it unheard of to summon two patronuses at the same time, but more importantly, he knew the history of Hogwarts and knew very well what the lion and the badger represented to this school.
Jon also noticed his shocked expression, but didn't care much.
Because even during the holidays, when Dumbledore first saw his two Patronuses, his expression was basically the same.
The patronus will change according to the caster's inner thoughts. This not only means that everyone's patronus is not static, but it also strongly illustrates that the animal form summoned by this spell directly reflects the wizard's inner self.
In the past sorting of Hogwarts, lions and badgers represented two valuable qualities.
And Jon's patronus is obviously special, not just because there are two of them. The key is that this lion and badger can directly affect reality, just like two real animals.
Although Dumbledore made in-depth developments in the Patronus Charm, allowing the wizards of the Order of the Phoenix to learn to use the Patronus to convey messages on their behalf, these were only accomplished later through improvements to the spell and magic itself.
John's patronus had these unique features when it was first summoned, which was a bit unusual.
But even someone as knowledgeable as Dumbledore couldn't figure out why John's Patronus had these special features. He could only be sure that such changes were definitely not a bad thing for John. At least his Patronus Charm could be used in more places, such as helping him to hold back most of the Death Eaters when he was in the Arctic.
Now, these two guardians can also bring more help to Jon.
After being summoned, the lion and badger rushed towards the Norwegian Ridgeback separately without Jon having to communicate with them verbally.
Their bodies glowed with a soft silver light at night, and the moment they rushed out from behind the trees, they were discovered by the Ridgeback Dragon, which remained vigilant even during its resting time.
"roar!"
It roared and climbed up from the ground, and the surrounding land shook. In front of such a huge monster, Jon's two guardians seemed very small.
There were dozens of Golden Snitches surrounding the Ridgeback Dragon, flapping their alchemical wings and flying around it at speeds that were difficult to detect with the naked eye.
Jon patted Hoss, whose body trembled violently after being roared by the dragon, and subconsciously wanted to find a place to hide.
"Don't be afraid. I will hold the dragon back. You take Cedric and rush into the valley. Find those centaurs and at least get in touch with them first."
Hoss turned his head to look at Cedric and couldn't help but snort. His eyes were obviously full of disdain, and his body, which was several times bigger than Jon's, actually leaned towards him like a little bird.
This made Jon slap it hard on its bald head.
"You're looking down on me! Don't blame me for not reminding you. There are almost only mares left among the centaurs hiding in this valley. They need to increase their reproduction efforts. Maybe your heroic appearance will attract a pretty mare to you."
Hearing Jon's tempting words, Hoss's eyes suddenly lit up. His powerful imagination ability had made him start to think about whether his future child with the little mare would have a horse's head and a human body, or a human's head and a centaur body.
Cedric was a little dazed as he looked at Hoss who had suddenly become active and agitated. He had previously thought that this Pegasus just had a unique appearance, but he didn't expect that it could play so...fancy.
Before he could come to his senses, Jon had already begun urging Cedric to ride on Hoss's back.
"Go find those centaurs first, I'll follow soon."
Cedric was not thinking about whether to abandon him or not at this time . He knew very well that he could not provide much help to John here, and might even hinder him.
"I'll find Firenze and ask them to help you."
He was riding on Hoss's back, and before he could finish his words, Jon waved his wand and whipped Hoss's horse's butt, causing both the man and the horse to turn into a gust of wind and rush towards the direction of the ridgeback dragon that was entangled by two patronuses.
Hoss's racial talent meant that as long as it could run, nothing could stand in its way. In almost the blink of an eye, it surpassed the Norwegian Ridgeback and rushed into the valley with Cedric.
At this time, Jon also walked out from behind the tree and looked at the fire dragon entangled by the lion and the badger.
For dragons, which are already at the top of the food chain, even if the patronus summoned by Jon has the strength and aggressiveness of a normal animal, it is difficult to cause any effective damage to it.
But the patronus itself is not a real creature. Even if John's patronus can cause physical damage, they are still two pieces of magic made up of magic power.
No matter how the Norwegian Ridgeback tried to tear them apart with its claws, or how it breathed out dragon breath to roast them, it never achieved any results.
Even though the lion and the badger couldn't cause much effective damage to it, it still felt as disgusting as two flies that could not be killed.
Just when its attention was completely attracted by the two patronuses, Jon raised the wand in his hand and aimed at the eyes of the ridgeback dragon!
"Thunder explosion!"
Instead of using any linear attack spell, John directly used the blasting spell with the fastest casting speed!
A huge explosion sounded directly around the eyes of the ridgeback dragon. Its extremely fast reaction speed made it close its eyelids at the moment of the explosion. However, as the weakest part of its body's defense, even with its eyelids closed, this magic still caused damage to it.
