Boy did Fairy Tail start this new arc with a bang, literally as you've all seen regarding the Magic Council's fate. The chapter starts with Silver standing outside of of the location of the Tartaros Guild which is a medieval castle which begs the question of what country are they hiding within ?
The Magic Council now get back into their main building after they learned that the Government Shutdown ended( Sorry, needed to add that joke in ) .They discuss about the Fairy Tail guild recent success within the Grand Magic Games and the completion of their mission from Warod Seeken for a bit while before they go to the main topic of conversation, the Tartaros Guild.
They talk about chilling news regarding the dark guild wiping out other dark guilds once affiliated with that dark guild within the last 7 days. Some members think that Crime Sorcière is to blame for the wiping out of those dark guilds while others blame Fairy Tail for indirectly causing the dark guilds to fight against each other however Doma puts it all together that the ones who took out the dark guilds were Tartaros themselves who were getting rid of weak, useless leads while gathering the strongest fighters.
However before the Magic Council Senate plans their next course of action, the Era building is destroyed in a series of explosions by an unknown attacker. HOLY SHIT! Shit's already getting real and it's just 10 pages into the new arc. What's even more surprising is that some members of the Magic Council were killed by the first explosion, including Lahar, Mest i mean Doranbolt's best friend.
Then we see our attacker, a cat like man by the name of Jackal however he doesn't seem like the friendly kind of cat as he reveals his intent to assassinate all 9 members of the magic council senate under the leader of the Tartaros Guild. Doranbolt attempts to save Org Roshi from Jackal but the old man tells him that he needs to live before he's killed.
Boy this is about as much of a dark turn as the King Piccolo Saga within Dragon Ball when Kirin and most of the martial artists were killed by Piccolo's minions in a similar fashion. Question is why was Era directly targeted ? If it's anything like the reason King Piccolo had martial artists killed, it's a good chance we're in for some serious dark moments.
Meanwhile at the Fairy Tail Guild, we get a brief break from the sudden dark shift in the plot to Fairy Tail celebrating the success of their mission with Warod Skeen, unaware of the national horror that has occurred. Mirajane is is serving drinks as usual while Elfman threatens to beat down one of the guild members for attempting to make a move on Lisanna while Lisanna calms him down and Alzack and Bisca bond with their child.
Erza meanwhile talks to Marakov about her enlisting within a dark guild showing concern for her which now posses alot of questions regarding to what happened to her. It also appears that no one has seen or heard from Jiemmna, Minerva's father whose disappeared as well. Erza and Makarov then talk about reporting this all to the Magic Council as well as contacting Sting.
Meanwhile we get to see Juvia again being as cute as possible. Juvia made some bread for Gray that has his face and her face as well which naturally creeps out Gray which Mirajane and Cana state that Gray doesn't seem interested in her which leads to an awkward moment with Elfman eating her bread which causes Juvia to comically overreact.
Anyways we get to more serious parts with Levy searching up E.N.D which is said to be a demon that is far beyond Deliora or Lullaby and pretty much confirmed to be Zeref's Strongest Demon. Natsu reaffirms that Igneel failed to stop E.N.D but Natsu then decides to go find and bust up Tetartos despite not even knowing their current location or what kind of power levels they're up against, thank god Natsu's not guildmaster. Lord knows how Fairy Tail would be under his leadership.
However it doesn't take long before news spread across Fiore and they learned the dark reality about the state of the world. Meanwhile at the ruins of the large Era building, it's confirmed that all members of the senate , including Lahar have been killed off by the attacker known as Jackal. What would be the next course of action now that the leadership of the magic world is gone ?
Meanwhile Doranbolt arrives within prison where Cobra is at to talk with the former Oracion Seis member. Doranbolt demands information from Cobra about the Tartaros Guild but Cobra makes the demand to release all 6 members of Oracion Seis by talking to the higher ups only to learn that they're all dead.
Doranbolt really isn't laying around here, he even points a knife toward Cobra's neck and threatens his life if he doesn't tell him information about the Tartaros Guild. Cobra refuses to yield from his demand but he does given Doranbolt important information about the dark guild.
Meanwhile at the castle of Tartaros, Kyouka arrives with her forces with Silver waiting there for the other members to appear where we get a revelation that Silver wasn't anything that he seemed to be. He was never human, he was a demon. They mention that Jackal and another member named Tempesta are other on missions before 5 more demons appear.
That's right, all of the people within Tartaros guild are demons. 9 of the strongest demons within Zeref's book. This is bad for the whole world. A demon as strong as Delora was strong enough to force a Saint Wizzard into using a suicide sealing technique to stop it completely and these demons are above Deliora.
Hell just going by Silver freezing an entire village of giants and the eternal flame which was actually Altas Flames, that alone shows how powerful each member can potentially be. Keep in mind that Silver defeated a Dragon whereas even Saint Wizard and S Class level mages and even the current Dragon Slayers couldn't beat a single dragon. The world is in serious trouble if all 9 members are this strong.
But even then, it doesn't even compare to the sheer terror of their Gulidmaster who is revealed to be the E.N.D. So yeah, this guy is almost as powerful as Ancologica as even Igneel couldn't kill him and keep in mind Igneel and Ancologica are leagues above normal dragons who are shown to level mountains. If E.N.D is as strong as Acnologia , then the entire world is in for a threat that they can't hope to handle.
This chapter has definitely set the tone for the new arc, let's hope that Mashima actually pays off with the hype this time and we don't get another Dragon Festival Arc disappointment.
Overall: A+