Horologium is a Celestial Spirit specialized in defense. He might just be a Silver Key spirit, but his defense is really great. It also depends on his contractor's magic power though, so with Lucy's current level, his defense becomes one of the best.
His defense is so great that Sawyer's Slow Magic can't affect Lucy who hides inside Horologium's body. So Lucy can see Sawyer's movements in real time and he is just as fast as most Mages. His strength is normal too as he can't even make Horologium move even slightly.
Sawyer's Slow Magic doesn't actually slow the time of its targets, after all. What it slows down is their perception. It makes their brain thinks very slowly, that's why others who aren't affected can see Sawyer moves at normal speed while he looks very fast in his targets' eyes.
Now everyone knows that she can defend against Sawyer's attacks. But they don't know how she will attack him because it will be useless if she can't attack. If she can't attack Sawyer, then it will be a draw with both teams getting 5 points each after 30 minutes.
It sure is better than 0 points, but they should always aim for victory. Of course, Lucy also doesn't want to just aim for a draw. She wants to win and this is just the 1st step of her plan.
Now that she knows Sawyer's Magic can't pass through Horologium's defense, she can finally use her main plan. She takes out Scorpio's key and places it on her chest to activate the Star Dress spell.
Her body shines for a moment and when it stops she already wears Scorpio's Star Dress. Then from inside Horologium's body, Lucy shoots a sand tornado at Sawyer.
People are surprised that Lucy can use a spell with this kind of power. But Alex and a few more people are more surprised that she can use this spell from inside of Horologium. They thought she would need to get out first to use any attack spell or at least summon another spirit outside.
But then, they are surprised by something else. Sawyer dodges Lucy's sand tornado by running to the left at a very high speed. No one is under his Slow Spell, so Sawyer's movements were just that fast.
Only the Mages of Heaven's Runners know that Sawyer can use another Magic other than Slow Magic. He can use the same Magic as Jet, Speed Magic, a type of magic that can increase his speed and he is more adept on it than Jet, so he can move faster.
It's just that he never showed it in this tournament before. So no one knows that he can move really fast. He learned this Magic because of his love for speed and Slow Magic doesn't always work all the time, so he needed another weapon.
But because his Slow Magic was already known by many people, he always used it first. He only used his Speed Magic when his Slow Magic failed to defeat his opponents and now is such a case because his Slow Magic can't affect Lucy who hides inside Horologium.
Although Sawyer uses an unexpected ability, Lucy doesn't panic. She quickly judges that Sawyer can't use his Speed and Slow Magic at the same time or he would've used them from the beginning without any worries, and she is right.
Even so, she can't come out of Horologium because Sawyer can immediately use his Slow Magic on her. So she needs to stay inside Horologium while continuing her attacks.
Lucy uses Scorpio's various Sand Magic spells to attack Sawyer. But he can always dodge them with his high speed and even attack her. Luckily, Horologium's defense is too strong for Sawyer.
But Lucy knows she can't keep Horologium here forever. His summon time limit is approaching, and when he leaves, it will be over for her. So she needs to defeat Sawyer before Horologium returns to the Spirit world.
With her intelligence, Lucy quickly finds a way to defeat Sawyer. If she can't hit only Sawyer, then she will just blast everything. So she gathers a lot of her magic power to use a very strong spell.
A rather wide magic circle appears beneath Horologium. Sand starts to gather around Lucy and Horologium, then it starts spinning around then at a very high speed. The spinning sand wall gets thicker and bigger very quickly, preventing Sawyer from attacking them now.
"Sand Blaster!"
After Lucy shouts her spell's name, the spinning sand wall explodes. Sand particles shoot everywhere at very high speeds, making it look like the spinning sand wall is expanding very rapidly.
The sand moves to every corner of the arena, blocking every path, so Sawyer can't dodge them. It's also too tall to jump over and he can't charge through the sand wall. With a helpless smile, Sawyer can only see the sand coming strongly at him before being hit.
Sawyer slams onto the arena wall and with so many sand particles hitting him at very high speeds, the damage he receives is really big. He doesn't get knocked out, but then his body is wrapped by the sand around him, making him unable to move.
Seeing Sawyer can't do anything anymore, the referee finally ends the match with Lucy's victory. The match goes in an unexpected way. Even Lucy's teammates are surprised, but they are pleased with this result either way.
"Those last 2 spells, are they the same Shukaku's spells?" Alex asks when Lucy returns because those spells look very similar to Shukaku's attack spells.
"It was because Scorpio tried to imitate them from Shukaku after seeing you used them in our sparring matches. Well, not exactly copying, just trying to make the same attacks, but he did it in his own way. I just used the spell he had recreated." Lucy explains.
"Hmm, as expected of the Sand Spirit. He can recreate a sand magic spell he saw just a few times."
Alex doesn't mind Scorpio copies Shukaku's spells and Shukaku also doesn't care. Copying or learning others' abilities to improve one's power is a normal thing to do. They just need to improve themselves more if they don't want to be surpassed, that's the only way.
Anyway, with the 3rd match of the day over, it's time for the last match. Sherria who was fighting Wendy in the series, is facing Cana now. The result will obviously be very different since her opponent is an S-Class Mage.
Then as expected, the current Sherria still can't defeat the current Cana. Different from the series, Cana has become an S-Class Mage for years. She has been trained by her father, the man who holds Fairy Tail's strongest Mage title for years.
Cana wasn't frozen in time for 7 years either, so she could keep improving herself. Her current power is much higher compared to herself in the series. Well, all members of Tenrou Group have become much stronger than they should be in the series around this time, thanks to Alex preventing them from being frozen in time.
Cana even succeeded in mastering the Fairy Glitter that was just lent to her by Mavis in the beginning. Now, it's not a borrowed spell anymore because she can use it herself. Her talent is great. She just didn't use it properly early in the series.
In her match against Sherria, she showed an overwhelming difference in power. While she didn't use spells that are much stronger than Sherria's spells to avoid discouraging the young Sherria, it was clear that she wasn't fighting with all her power.
She blocked all of Sherria's Sky God Slayer Magic attacks with various elemental attacks generated from her cards. Even her wind card magic can counter Sherria's magic easily. Cana only defended against Sherria's attacks in most of the match.
It made Sherria frustrated though because none of her attacks worked. She got even more frustrated because Cana fought her while sitting relaxedly on an enlarged flying card that made her look like Aladdin on his flying carpet.
What's more, Cana never flew too far from her as if taunting her to keep attacking and used stronger attacks. So she did use stronger attacks out of frustration and as a result, she ran out of magic power quickly.
Cana didn't even attack her seriously and only used small attacks to tease her. Then when Sherria was low on magic power, Cana threw a card to capture her. Even if she was at full strength, she wouldn't be able to escape Cana's Capture Card, not to mention when she was weakened.
With that, Cana won the match against Sherria and she even gave the younger girl a very important advice when releasing Sherria from the card. Cana told her to always keep her cool no matter how irritating her opponents were.
Now, the 3rd Day of this tournament is finally over despite the few incidents. The night passes and it's finally time for the 4th Day of this year's Grand Magic Games. On the 4th day, the hidden event is really Pandemonium, but it's quite different from the one in the series.
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Ch. 238. Alex's Game Rules