The black beast spat a stream of flames at the encroaching soldiers. Except for one, the soldiers were able to get away from the line of attack. The unlucky victim was quick to turn his back on the attack and duck his head. Fortunately, his armour was fireproof, and he wasn't scorched to death but suffered severe skin burns under the suit. The victim had white skin, and when he turned to face the beast, his pale blue face showed that his body's blood flow had been compromised, and if not dealt with, he would die soon.
There was a glint of delight in the dragon's eyes, and the desire to finish its victim was manifest. Zheng predicted the beast's next move, and he ran ahead of the dragon towards the arson victim. He dove and slammed into the victim. Both men fell out of the way of the beast's maw.
The nine soldiers launched a coordinated attack from various angles on the beast. The soldiers were armed with a sword in their hands and lassos hanging firmly on hooks around their waists. They destabilised the beast, and it fell on its belly. The pain caused by the active vaporisation made it too exhausted to fight. It was at this point that other dragons from previous taming attempts by Prince Zheng gave up. The current dragon gave up. Six of the soldiers used their lassos to restrain the beast. Four of them pulled on its four limbs, and two pulled on its tail.
Two soldiers stood on the dragon's neck and used their lassos to bind and pull on the dragon's maw, restraining the maw.
A soldier who stood face to face with the dragon said with a toothy grin, "Another day at the office."
During the fight between the dragon and the nine soldiers, Zheng helped the injured soldier limp away from the arena through a dug-out tunnel at the northern end that was below the first row of seats. He quickly returned to the arena, barely missing the action. He watched the soldiers sweep the beast off its feet and restrain it.
A foolish idea formed in Zheng's head. He thought,
'This is my chance to make this taming session a success. By the ancestors, I feel the tinge of success.'
He hypothesised that if he stopped his active spell, the prisoner spell, and used the first spell that he stopped using after he used it in his first ever taming session, he would succeed. This was because his body was bolstered with more mana than ever before.
The soldier standing before the face of the dragon had drawn out his long sword from the scabbard that was hanging on his back. He was savouring the moment before he would slay the fiery beast.
From where Zheng stood, the orb and the crystal were on the other side of the dragon. He dashed to the soldier who was about to slay the beast and snatched away his sword, zooming off to get the orb and crystal. The dispossessed soldier stood stranded and confused. The soldier said to his other comrades,
"The prince snatched my sword."
The other soldiers reacted angrily, "Why?"
"Does he think this is a joke?"
"Is he insane?"
"I'm going to kill him when this is over."
"What the hell is wrong with the imbecile?"
Muller couldn't believe his eyes. He wondered if Zheng was still in his right mind. He asked the prince,
"My prince, what are you doing?"
Without sparing a glance, Zheng replied at the top of his voice, "Please, you all should trust me on this one."
He reached the crystal first and picked it up. Then he darted to the orb. When the orb was in his grasp, he drew runes on the ground within two seconds. He directed his sight at the dragon and said,
"hoc vas off incantamenta!"
Promptly, the runes filled the arena ground, and the vaporisation spell on the dragon ceased to be. At the instant the traumatising spell stopped, the dragon powerfully and randomly hauled its body, and the soldiers restraining it were flung away into the seats. The soldier who stood before its face, was whipped into the seats by its tail.
The beast was intelligent. It riled up geysers of dust that filled the arena, blinding Zheng from seeing it.
Zheng was so nervous. He wasn't powerful enough to cast a spell on an object without being able to see it. The 20 seconds to use the runes were up, and they disappeared from the arena. Muller, on the other hand, couldn't see the prince or the dragon.
Muller yelled in anxiety, "My prince, don't stand in a place! Run towards the stands!"
Two soldiers had managed to find themselves in the western stand amidst the dust clouds.
"Can you see the prince?" One of them asked.
"No," the second replied. "Are you with a sword?"
"Yes, I have," the first said. "Do you have a plan?"
"Not really. Let's go into the arena. Perhaps our measly sixth sense may become significant."
Zheng hadn't taken Muller's advice. He still stood where he was. The fear of being mauled by the dragon if he made the wrong move, crippled him. Suddenly, his instincts told him to dive to the side, but he hesitated. He didn't know when he reacted, but he dove to his left, almost too late, to dodge a blast of flames coming at him from the front. The flames went directly into the cage at the south end, and the explosion shook the entire theatre.
Strangely, the explosive impact didn't make it outside the building. People outside the theatre building had no idea what was happening inside. This was courtesy of the shock-absorbing materials that were used to construct the building.
The turbulence caused by the passage of the flames cleared up the dust a bit. The soldiers were all in the arena, moving in different directions that were not towards the prince or the dragon. The snarl of the beast drew their attention to its location. The dragon was about sixty metres from Zheng and slowly approached him.
At that moment, the dust cleared up enough for Muller to see the situation. He panicked, yelling to the soldiers,
"Protect the prince!"