After Cedric, the remaining contestants were also attacked one after another.
A few were caught completely off guard and knocked unconscious by spells, causing them to lose their competition rewards, but most managed to survive this final ordeal.
Once they avoided the initial ambush, the threat posed by the contestants on shore dropped significantly. For those still underwater, successfully reaching land was no longer particularly difficult.
If necessary, several people could surface at the same time!
One person might attract more than a dozen spells, but if several people surfaced together, things would be completely different. Some lucky contestants might not even have a single spell aimed at them.
After the contestants on shore began attacking those in the water, the rhythm of the competition became rather strange.
Logically speaking, those who had been ambushed should have been furious. Yet after reaching shore, most of them surprisingly did not retaliate against the contestants waiting there.
Perhaps they did not want to create unnecessary trouble. Perhaps some of those participating in the ambush were their classmates. Or perhaps they wanted to use these people to eliminate some of their own competitors.
Whatever the reason, the competition settled into a bizarre balance.
The contestants gathered by the shore would attack anyone who surfaced on the lake without hesitation. But once those contestants successfully made it onto land, everyone would tacitly stop attacking to avoid provoking public outrage and retaliation.
As a result, dozens of people had made it ashore since Cedric, yet only one contestant had been knocked unconscious, and that person had been taken down by Cedric himself!
Cedric stared dumbfounded at the strange direction the competition had taken.
"If I'd known this would happen, I would've knocked them all out!"
He slapped his thigh in frustration, deeply regretting his earlier restraint.
As far as he was concerned, those despicable fellows had no right to continue participating in the competition!
The Hufflepuff students gathered around him began trying to comfort him.
"It's fine. Who could've guessed the people afterward would act like this?"
"Why worry about it so much? You could consider this part of the competition's test."
"It's not necessarily a bad thing if they help eliminate some competitors."
Listening to the noisy voices around him, Cedric could not help but sigh.
Just thinking about having to continue competing alongside people who had resorted to such underhanded methods made him feel irritated.
While Cedric was regretting his decision, the situation that had persisted for quite some time was finally broken by a Durmstrang student.
Before him, every contestant who successfully broke through after leaving the lake had gone directly to the judges to have their completion verified and finish the event.
He was different.
After successfully reaching shore, he did not hurry toward the judges. Instead, he stopped by the lakeside and began observing the situation.
The contestants gathered there immediately became wary.
Was this fellow planning to retaliate?
But what happened next caught them completely off guard.
The Durmstrang student took two steps forward and joined the group of hunters waiting by the shore!
Even the contestants who had already been guarding the shore were momentarily stunned.
Once they realised what he was doing, delighted expressions appeared on their faces.
If he was willing to join them, that was obviously a good thing!
One more person meant one more pair of hands. Better yet, he had already completed the challenge and would not compete with them for the completion chests. There was practically no downside.
The spectators were stunned.
You could actually do that?
But when they saw that the judges nearby showed no reaction whatsoever, they quickly understood that this shameless tactic was apparently still permitted by the rules.
The Headmasters seated among the judges were far less united than the students imagined.
In fact, they had already discussed what had just happened.
"Karkaroff, what an excellent student you've taught!"
When Madame Maxime saw the Durmstrang student voluntarily join the hunters, she could not resist making a sarcastic remark at Karkaroff.
Karkaroff laughed.
"I certainly didn't teach him to do that. The boy came up with the idea himself. And as far as I can see, he hasn't violated any rules, has he? He's merely delaying coming over here to have his result verified!"
If contestants remaining on shore to intercept those returning from the lake after completing the challenge did not violate the rules, then there was even less reason to criticise the Durmstrang student.
After all, there was no rule forcing contestants to officially complete the event the instant they were able to.
Once Karkaroff said this, the other Headmasters fell silent.
Some could no longer argue because they had failed to object earlier, while several others simply had students of their own among the hunters.
Before long, a shark's head emerged from the surface of the lake.
The hunters immediately launched their attacks, but the Durmstrang student who had joined them earlier suddenly cast a Shield Charm, buying Krum enough time to react.
Krum was startled, but he recovered almost immediately and rushed onto the shore, escaping the barrage of spells.
Seeing what the student had done, the spectators' eyes widened once again.
The Headmasters also realised the advantage of this method.
Having "their own people" among the hunters meant they could protect classmates from the same school as they came ashore!
The further the competition progressed, the more contestants gathered to hunt those emerging from the lake, making it increasingly difficult to reach shore.
But if some allies were already embedded among the hunters, the outcome would be completely different.
Moreover, because the Eight Great Schools of Magic had the largest number of contestants, the factions they could form were also the strongest.
This could very well become the perfect opportunity for the Eight Great Schools of Magic to work together and eliminate the independent contestants!
After today, only contestants from the Eight Great Schools of Magic might remain in the tournament.
Once the Headmasters realised there was such a benefit, they became even less inclined to interfere.
They all hoped to use this opportunity to eliminate a group of competitors and reduce the intensity of the competition.
Nearly a hundred contestants still remained.
That was simply too many.
If nothing unexpected happened, the competition really would continue developing in this direction.
Unfortunately, something unexpected did happen.
Rhys had spent a long time observing the merfolk village, but after seeing no new or interesting methods for quite a while, he finally lost interest in continuing to watch.
He began swimming upward, gradually moving away from the merfolk village.
On the return journey, he spotted two striking silver figures.
Daphne and Astoria were swimming slowly together not far ahead.
Beneath the dark waters of the Black Lake, the two girls actually looked more like the mermaids from myths and legends than the real merfolk did.
Their slow pace was not because they were poor swimmers.
Any wizard who had mastered the flow of magic would hardly be troubled by something like that. Even without a water-related domain, using magic to propel themselves through the water was simple enough.
The two girls had fallen behind because they had been playing around.
After all, there was no rule saying they would receive higher scores for finishing earlier. Why not take the opportunity to properly enjoy themselves in the Black Lake?
They only needed to return before the one-hour time limit expired.
When Astoria heard her sister's suggestion, she readily agreed.
The two of them had even worked out a way to communicate underwater.
At that moment, Daphne used magic to write a line of words in front of herself:
[Our House common room is beneath the Black Lake. Want to go take a look? I've never seen our common room from the outside before.]
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12 Chaps ahead at Patreon.com/HornyFBI