Fantasy Jellal vs Gray

[grey matter]

I want to bring this back, battle of the featless clowns.

@grey matter hehe

Whats the point lmao

I mean, literally nothing has changed since we had this convo a few months back. Neither of them got any feats.

My opinion still remains the same:
- Normal Gray gets mid diffed.
- Darkness Gray mid-high diffs

 

[GL_Nova]

Gray can’t beat a healthy Mira. He can’t beat Erza, or Laxus, or Jellal.

 

[Sinister Spirit]

(I stopped after Alvalez so feel free to debunk me if current Gray is better now)

The problem with Gray is that his toughest foes tend to have specific weaknesses to his magic: Invel could've 1-shotted him if Gray wasn't near-immuned to ice (how fortunate that he coincidentally falls on the ice mage, imagine him fighting God Serena instead!) and the reason he was on par with END was because he had the Slayer advantage. Devil Slayer magic is like the name says: Extremely effective against demons, only decent against anything else.

Just look at the fight with Mard Geer for instance: Mard could tank DF Natsu's attacks until Natsu was completely exhausted, while Gray basically 1-shotted him once he finally managed to hit him. Yet Natsu and Gray's raw powers were pretty equal back then, it wasn't Gray who had surpassed Natsu, it was the Slayer advantage making a big difference since Mard was a demon. Same goes for defense, Gray could absorb and survive Memento Mori because it was a DEMONIC curse, he would've died if it had no-link with demons.

And Mard was just a "regular" demon, Silver said he specifically chose Ice Devil Slayer magic because it'd be the best to counter a fire demon such as END (don't ask why he didn't pick fire to absorb his flames, if plot wants ice to be more effective, so be it), which means Gray's slayer advantage on END was even better than against Mard, which was already close to a Pokemon double type advantage. Yet despite this huge advantage, the fight with END was just even, proving how Gray would get stomped if he wasn't lucky enough to fall on enemies with specific weaknesses to his magic.


Jellal on the other hand isn't a demon and doesn't use ice magic, so he doesn't have any weakness to Gray, this is purely about stats. And in my opinion, his stats are better than Gray's:
-He has far more offensive power since he has spells such as Abyss Break (which could've destroyed the whole Tower of Heaven, and that was before the 7 years timeskip, in which he must've trained a lot) or summoning a huge meteor, and he defeated Oracion Seis (okay, I think normally they wouldn't have gone down so easily, but the final result would've stayed the same). Alvalez Gray on the other hand still had no feats comparable to Silver freezing a whole village (probably because Silver had more training as a Devil Slayer).
-He's faster since he can fly and could survive Acnologia for a while.
-He seems equally (if not more) versatile since he copied Mystogan's magic perfectly (which is quite complex), but I don't deny Gray is versatile too with all the ice constructs he can make.
-The ONLY thing in which Gray is likely better is intellect, since we saw him outsmarting his enemies tons of times. But Jellal isn't dumb, he has 7 more years of experience, and he did prove capable of making strategies and long-term plans in Tower of Heaven (though I'm not sure if it was HIS own intellect being used since he was "brainwashed"). But I doubt intellect alone would be enough.



To sum it all: Gray may be better than Jellal at dealing with demons and ice mages, but Jellal is still better than Gray against anything else.

 

[Ronin31]

I can see Jellal > Grey (Ice Make) but Grey (DS) > Jellal. If we take account of full darkness, then Grey >> Jellal

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 22, 2020, Original Post Date: Nov 22, 2020 ---

Gray can’t beat a healthy Mira.

... who was teaming up with Elfman who tanked Mix Dress attack as well as Mirajane herself. He beats them both exausted and for me, it's a feat.
A healthy 1 vs 1, I see them around same level, like Natsu vs Gajeel fight.

 

[Biri Biri]

(I stopped after Alvalez so feel free to debunk me if current Gray is better now)

The problem with Gray is that his toughest foes tend to have specific weaknesses to his magic: Invel could've 1-shotted him if Gray wasn't near-immuned to ice (how fortunate that he coincidentally falls on the ice mage, imagine him fighting God Serena instead!) and the reason he was on par with END was because he had the Slayer advantage. Devil Slayer magic is like the name says: Extremely effective against demons, only decent against anything else.

Just look at the fight with Mard Geer for instance: Mard could tank DF Natsu's attacks until Natsu was completely exhausted, while Gray basically 1-shotted him once he finally managed to hit him. Yet Natsu and Gray's raw powers were pretty equal back then, it wasn't Gray who had surpassed Natsu, it was the Slayer advantage making a big difference since Mard was a demon. Same goes for defense, Gray could absorb and survive Memento Mori because it was a DEMONIC curse, he would've died if it had no-link with demons.

And Mard was just a "regular" demon, Silver said he specifically chose Ice Devil Slayer magic because it'd be the best to counter a fire demon such as END (don't ask why he didn't pick fire to absorb his flames, if plot wants ice to be more effective, so be it), which means Gray's slayer advantage on END was even better than against Mard, which was already close to a Pokemon double type advantage. Yet despite this huge advantage, the fight with END was just even, proving how Gray would get stomped if he wasn't lucky enough to fall on enemies with specific weaknesses to his magic.


Jellal on the other hand isn't a demon and doesn't use ice magic, so he doesn't have any weakness to Gray, this is purely about stats. And in my opinion, his stats are better than Gray's:
-He has far more offensive power since he has spells such as Abyss Break (which could've destroyed the whole Tower of Heaven, and that was before the 7 years timeskip, in which he must've trained a lot) or summoning a huge meteor, and he defeated Oracion Seis (okay, I think normally they wouldn't have gone down so easily, but the final result would've stayed the same). Alvalez Gray on the other hand still had no feats comparable to Silver freezing a whole village (probably because Silver had more training as a Devil Slayer).
-He's faster since he can fly and could survive Acnologia for a while.
-He seems equally (if not more) versatile since he copied Mystogan's magic perfectly (which is quite complex), but I don't deny Gray is versatile too with all the ice constructs he can make.
-The ONLY thing in which Gray is likely better is intellect, since we saw him outsmarting his enemies tons of times. But Jellal isn't dumb, he has 7 more years of experience, and he did prove capable of making strategies and long-term plans in Tower of Heaven (though I'm not sure if it was HIS own intellect being used since he was "brainwashed"). But I doubt intellect alone would be enough.



To sum it all: Gray may be better than Jellal at dealing with demons and ice mages, but Jellal is still better than Gray against anything else.

In the 100yq, Gray hasn't shown any new feats that we didn't already know he is capable of. He did get to avenge his unfair loss to Bixlow in the BoFT arc, by stomping a brainwashed Raijinshuu singlehandedly. However Raijinshuu are yesteryear news, so nobody regards it as anything impressive.

I can see where you are coming from when you say Gray seems to defeat adversaries that he is presumably strong against. But that's a very simplistic view without taking into account the context of their fights. Before we go into the context, we should address the fact that Gray used to be pitted in fights against adversaries that holds a clear advantage over him due to the nature of his magic. In ToH, Gray fought Fukurou who attained Natsu's flames by consuming him and his magic. Fukurou then stated that Gray's resistance is futile since ice's weakness is fire. Gray froze the flames and defeated Fukurou. In Edolas arc, Sugarboy's weapon enables him to melt/liquefy anything it touches. He claimed he has the upperhand since ice is the solid form of water, and he turned Gray's ice back into water. On Tenrou island, Gray fought Ultear who used Arc of Time, a magic she claimed designed to render molding magic ineffective. During GMG, Gray fought Rufus. Mavis claimed that Gray is a bad matchup against Rufus as the latter's Memory-make could exploit the characteristics of Gray's ice-make. Rufus also has fire attacks in his arsenal. Gray then fought Silver, who literally ate his attacks, tore through him mercilessly and repeatedly punish his wounds with a twisted look of a sadist. Silver went as lightly on Gray as Irene did on Erza. which was not very lightly

I find it hard to believe that Mashima made it a point to have all those characters address Gray's perceived disadvantage to the readers, if they aren't relevant. Gray has consistently fought foes who has an advantage over him, and came out top through his strength. His track record speaks for itself.

Moving on to Invel. Gray never once relied on the nature of his ice devil slayer magic to gain an unfair advantage over him. He blitzed Invel once with zeroth longsword. That was a legitimate skill, not trickery or planned ahead of time. Aside from that attack, Invel was largely comfortable handling whatever Gray threw at him. While tossing him around like a ragdoll with his own attacks. It was only after he was resuscitated that Gray could overwhelm Invel with his speed and strength. Gray is always going to fight the token ice-user on the enemies' side. It's a trend since the beginning of the series. I don't see what there is to complain about here. He didn't eat Invel's ice to replenish or enhance his strength. Or rather he couldn't, since Invel was on a different level initially.

As per your Pokémon analogy, fire is super effective against ice offensively, and resistant against ice defensively. It is the same in FT. END Natsu uses fire and fire only. Dimaria was dominating Chelia, a God Slayer, with her god soul Chronos' takeover. Despite her God Slayer powers, Chelia couldn't compete with Dimaria. She required third origin release from Ultear to eventually defeat Dimaria. What third origin release does, is allow the user to tap into their peak powers from the future. None of the dragon slayers could seriously harm a dragon during the GMG. Even in the 100yq, Natsu's dragon slayer attacks were ineffective on half-power Mercphobia, until he consumed Ignia's flames to attain a huge boost in his strength. Multiple examples that indicates magic power and physical attributes are clearly a bigger factor than either slayer or elemental advantage. I believe Mashima feels the same way as he never brought up either Natsu or Gray's advantage over the other during their fight. However, when people bring up Gray's supposed slayer advantage over Natsu and used it as an excuse for Natsu's performance because it didn't live up their expectations of END hype, then it's only fair to point out Natsu's elemental advantage too. Tbh I find both factors negligible when compared to how the characters stack up against each other with regards to physical attributes or magic power.

 

[Jko]

Base Natsu = Gray > Jellal.

 

[Sinister Spirit]

In the 100yq, Gray hasn't shown any new feats that we didn't already know he is capable of. He did get to avenge his unfair loss to Bixlow in the BoFT arc, by stomping a brainwashed Raijinshuu singlehandedly. However Raijinshuu are yesteryear news, so nobody regards it as anything impressive.

I can see where you are coming from when you say Gray seems to defeat adversaries that he is presumably strong against. But that's a very simplistic view without taking into account the context of their fights. Before we go into the context, we should address the fact that Gray used to be pitted in fights against adversaries that holds a clear advantage over him due to the nature of his magic. In ToH, Gray fought Fukurou who attained Natsu's flames by consuming him and his magic. Fukurou then stated that Gray's resistance is futile since ice's weakness is fire. Gray froze the flames and defeated Fukurou. In Edolas arc, Sugarboy's weapon enables him to melt/liquefy anything it touches. He claimed he has the upperhand since ice is the solid form of water, and he turned Gray's ice back into water. On Tenrou island, Gray fought Ultear who used Arc of Time, a magic she claimed designed to render molding magic ineffective. During GMG, Gray fought Rufus. Mavis claimed that Gray is a bad matchup against Rufus as the latter's Memory-make could exploit the characteristics of Gray's ice-make. Rufus also has fire attacks in his arsenal. Gray then fought Silver, who literally ate his attacks, tore through him mercilessly and repeatedly punish his wounds with a twisted look of a sadist. Silver went as lightly on Gray as Irene did on Erza. which was not very lightly

I find it hard to believe that Mashima made it a point to have all those characters address Gray's perceived disadvantage to the readers, if they aren't relevant. Gray has consistently fought foes who has an advantage over him, and came out top through his strength. His track record speaks for itself.

Moving on to Invel. Gray never once relied on the nature of his ice devil slayer magic to gain an unfair advantage over him. He blitzed Invel once with zeroth longsword. That was a legitimate skill, not trickery or planned ahead of time. Aside from that attack, Invel was largely comfortable handling whatever Gray threw at him. While tossing him around like a ragdoll with his own attacks. It was only after he was resuscitated that Gray could overwhelm Invel with his speed and strength. Gray is always going to fight the token ice-user on the enemies' side. It's a trend since the beginning of the series. I don't see what there is to complain about here. He didn't eat Invel's ice to replenish or enhance his strength. Or rather he couldn't, since Invel was on a different level initially.

As per your Pokémon analogy, fire is super effective against ice offensively, and resistant against ice defensively. It is the same in FT. END Natsu uses fire and fire only. Dimaria was dominating Chelia, a God Slayer, with her god soul Chronos' takeover. Despite her God Slayer powers, Chelia couldn't compete with Dimaria. She required third origin release from Ultear to eventually defeat Dimaria. What third origin release does, is allow the user to tap into their peak powers from the future. None of the dragon slayers could seriously harm a dragon during the GMG. Even in the 100yq, Natsu's dragon slayer attacks were ineffective on half-power Mercphobia, until he consumed Ignia's flames to attain a huge boost in his strength. Multiple examples that indicates magic power and physical attributes are clearly a bigger factor than either slayer or elemental advantage. I believe Mashima feels the same way as he never brought up either Natsu or Gray's advantage over the other during their fight. However, when people bring up Gray's supposed slayer advantage over Natsu and used it as an excuse for Natsu's performance because it didn't live up their expectations of END hype, then it's only fair to point out Natsu's elemental advantage too. Tbh I find both factors negligible when compared to how the characters stack up against each other with regards to physical attributes or magic power.

I mentioned Pokemon type advantages because Slayer advantages do something similar to "damage dealt multiplied, damage taken divided" against the creature they're meant to slay, I didn't mean Fairy Tail had the same elemental logic as Pokemon. In fact, regardless of what was said about fire being ice's weakness, Silver said he chose Ice Devil Slaying magic because it was THE best of all to counter a fire demon such as END, so I guess plot decided to change the element logic (don't ask why, I also wondered why Silver didn't pick fire to absorb END's flames, but let's just accept it).

Chelia wasn't even close to Gray's level in terms of raw power, and like I said, Gray apparently also had the element advantage against END, so that could explain the difference. As for the dragons in GMG, the dragon slayers could at least deal damage (even minor) to them, while even mages as strong as Jura (who was like 5 times stronger than Sting or Rogue back then) couldn't even scratch them. Besides, the characters weren't as strong back then as they were in Alvalez and I'm pretty sure dragons in this universe are in general stronger than gods.

But if you want a clue of Gray's Devil Slaying advantage: In Tartaros, he and Natsu were pretty close in raw power, yet Mard Geer tanked DF Natsu's attacks until the later was completely exhausted, and he was fine. Gray on the other hand only needed a single shot to defeat Mard, which should put Devil Slaying magic at least 3 times deadlier (against demons) than DF, and Natsu already stated DF tripled his power, that means Gray's Devil Slaying attacks deal over 9 TIMES more damage than usual against demons. And I'm not even talking of emotion boost, the defensive aspects (absorbing demonic curses) and the extra element advantage Gray apparently had against END. If Gray only stalemated END with such broken advantages, then either his BASE power isn't as strong as we thought, or END is indeed close to Acnologia's level, or it's more likely an "in-between" of both.


But then again, I stopped after Alvalez so if you say the CURRENT feats and rules contradict what I said, fine, we know Fairy Tail keeps changing.

 

[grey matter]

@Sinister Spirit
I see where you're coming from, but you're wrong about END vs Gray.

END was still mostly in human form, so slayer advantage was barely a thing. Darkness Gray was stalemating partial END in combat - i.e, in speed, physical strength, attack power etc. Point being, their stats were clearly comparable, and they were clearly in the same tier.

On the contrary, Mard Geer was like 10 tiers above Gray. We could clearly see the power level difference in the battle. Neither Natsu nor Gray could touch him. Not even DF Natsu managed to injure him, even after he caught Mard by surprise and managed to empty his full power on him. In pure stats, Mard >> DF Natsu >> Gray
This was a case where slayer advantage was applicable, because:
- it was clearly stated so in the fight. Multiple times
- slayer advantage would be the only way Gray could take down Mard, who's tiers above DF Natsu, who in turn is tiers above Gray.

This wasn't the case in END fight, where the fight was equal, slayer advantage was nowhere mentioned in the fight, and where Natsu was still mostly human. The transformation of Natsu was just taking place, what we saw was a .
END/Natsu is different from Mard in the sense that, Mard was a pure demon summoned from the underworld. END is a demon bound to a human's body in order to revive the said human (Natsu). Until the transformation from human to demon happens, no slayer advantage for Gray.
Now, for the sake of argument, lets even assume slayer advantage was a thing, in the same way it was to Mard. Gray would've one shot partial END, because their stats were comparable. If slayer advantage can defeat a demon, who's several tiers above you, with a clean shot; why won't it one shot a demon who is in your tier? Hence, Slayer advantage is not applicable.


All that being said, darkness form isn't something Gray can activate willingly, at least as far as we know.
Regular DeS Gray would at most give Jellol a mid diff
Darkness Gray would mid-high (leaning high IMO) diff Jellol

 

[Tirl]

But then again, I stopped after Alvalez so if you say the CURRENT feats and rules contradict what I said, fine, we know Fairy Tail keeps changing.

Not current, but old ones. Like she said - Gray fought opponents who had advantage over him, not vise versa.

In current FT Gray fought exhausted Mirajane (a DEVIL) and barely won, saing several times that she is a monster and he needed her to be exhausted to beat her.

 

[Ratrace]

I can see Jellal > Grey (Ice Make) but Grey (DS) > Jellal. If we take account of full darkness, then Grey >> Jellal

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 22, 2020, Original Post Date: Nov 22, 2020 ---

... who was teaming up with Elfman who tanked Mix Dress attack as well as Mirajane herself. He beats them both exausted and for me, it's a feat.
A healthy 1 vs 1, I see them around same level, like Natsu vs Gajeel fight.

What were Lucy and Cana doing then

 

[Sinister Spirit]

@Sinister Spirit
I see where you're coming from, but you're wrong about END vs Gray.

END was still mostly in human form, so slayer advantage was barely a thing. Darkness Gray was stalemating partial END in combat - i.e, in speed, physical strength, attack power etc. Point being, their stats were clearly comparable, and they were clearly in the same tier.

On the contrary, Mard Geer was like 10 tiers above Gray. We could clearly see the power level difference in the battle. Neither Natsu nor Gray could touch him. Not even DF Natsu managed to injure him, even after he caught Mard by surprise and managed to empty his full power on him. In pure stats, Mard >> DF Natsu >> Gray
This was a case where slayer advantage was applicable, because:
- it was clearly stated so in the fight. Multiple times
- slayer advantage would be the only way Gray could take down Mard, who's tiers above DF Natsu, who in turn is tiers above Gray.

This wasn't the case in END fight, where the fight was equal, slayer advantage was nowhere mentioned in the fight, and where Natsu was still mostly human. The transformation of Natsu was just taking place, what we saw was a .
END/Natsu is different from Mard in the sense that, Mard was a pure demon summoned from the underworld. END is a demon bound to a human's body in order to revive the said human (Natsu). Until the transformation from human to demon happens, no slayer advantage for Gray.
Now, for the sake of argument, lets even assume slayer advantage was a thing, in the same way it was to Mard. Gray would've one shot partial END, because their stats were comparable. If slayer advantage can defeat a demon, who's several tiers above you, with a clean shot; why won't it one shot a demon who is in your tier? Hence, Slayer advantage is not applicable.


All that being said, darkness form isn't something Gray can activate willingly, at least as far as we know.
Regular DeS Gray would at most give Jellol a mid diff
Darkness Gray would mid-high (leaning high IMO) diff Jellol

I personally disagree with the fact Natsu didn't count as a full demon just because he was in human form (Gray's attacks were also effective against human form Mard) and the fact he and Gray had close stats in Alvalez (ultimately I agree for speed, but I think the rest was Devil Slaying buffs), but I admit there's no-real proof, all we can do is make personal theories. I respect your opinion, but I don't share it.

 

[grey matter]

I personally disagree with the fact Natsu didn't count as a full demon just because he was in human form (Gray's attacks were also effective against human form Mard) and the fact he and Gray had close stats in Alvalez (ultimately I agree for speed, but I think the rest was Devil Slaying buffs), but I admit there's no-real proof, all we can do is make personal theories. I respect your opinion, but I don't share it.

And because Natsu IS a human. He just had a demon injected into him to revive him, but the guy is 100% human in biology (except during DF lol, there he gains properties of dragons). Until END takes him over and transforms him, he is still a human. The transformation was slowly taking place, and before it could happen, Plotza stopped their fight.

Do you disagree that their physical strength matched as well? If so, why? Slayer advantage has no bearings on physical strength. Them matching in punches is an indication of their physical strength.
You can potentially make the argument for boosted damage output from spells for Gray, that's possible from slayer advantage. But I see no reason to believe Gray's damage output was boosted, considering they were pretty matched regarding other stats.

I mean, sure. We just make theories. But that's the point of these forums. We discuss our theories and try to argue why it makes sense. From everything we've seen (i.e manga panels), the gap between partial END and Gray was far far lesser than between Mard and Gray. You've not really given a case to argue otherwise.

 

[Ronin31]

What were Lucy and Cana doing then

Didn't they split to catch others into the cards ? Gray managed to deal with Mira and Elfman while Cana and Lucy catched Reby and Gajeel when they were kissing around. When they regrouped, Cana was surprised seeing Gray almost out while Mirajane was exaust. But, see the cards : Elfman was captured with her.

Chapter 49 :
Cana : "That was pathetic. You were struggling against a beat-up opponent ?"
Grey : "Well, that opponent was Mira-Chan"
Lucy : "But now, we have Mira-san and Elfman in these cards" (result of the fight)
Cana : "speaking of which, the master was beaten, and we got Levy and Gajeel when they were flirting" (they took them in different place when Gray was struggling with the Strauss)

How can they put Makarov, Gajeel and Levy into cards, the same time they were fighting Elfman ? They were in different places and regrouped to capture Elfman and Mira into cards, beaten by Gray.

 

[Tirl]

And because Natsu IS a human

Natsu is clearly a demon. He wasnt revived with his human body, he was created like all other demons. He has the book with his life, he has the same smell with Larcade, he also would be dead if Zefer dies because he is literally his magic creation.
Lucy had to rewrite his meaning to make him independent. And he is still a demon

 

[Sinister Spirit]

And because Natsu IS a human. He just had a demon injected into him to revive him, but the guy is 100% human in biology (except during DF lol, there he gains properties of dragons). Until END takes him over and transforms him, he is still a human. The transformation was slowly taking place, and before it could happen, Plotza stopped their fight.

Do you disagree that their physical strength matched as well? If so, why? Slayer advantage has no bearings on physical strength. Them matching in punches is an indication of their physical strength.
You can potentially make the argument for boosted damage output from spells for Gray, that's possible from slayer advantage. But I see no reason to believe Gray's damage output was boosted, considering they were pretty matched regarding other stats.

I mean, sure. We just make theories. But that's the point of these forums. We discuss our theories and try to argue why it makes sense. From everything we've seen (i.e manga panels), the gap between partial END and Gray was far far lesser than between Mard and Gray. You've not really given a case to argue otherwise.

Technically Natsu had a demon SEED inside him, so he always was at least 1% demon but I see your point. But when his END mode woke up, he definitely counted as more than just 1% demon, even if his body LOOKED human. If the demon seed was able to take over his mind, then I think its corruption probably spread over 50% of his body, and destroying it made his full body return to normal (which didn't bring much physical changes since he never used his Etherious form).

I haven't seen the fight in a while so I admit my memories are blurry, but did they ever land PURELY physical hits? Because if they only traded "magical" punches, it's possible the Slayer Advantage crippled END's physical strength.

Anyway stats don't always scale the same way, someone could have amazing physical stats and not be the best in magic, or vice versa. So even if Gray and Natsu were close in physical strength, speed, etc, I still think Natsu had far more magical power, but Gray could match him thanks to his Slayer advantage.

 

[grey matter]

Natsu is clearly a demon. He wasnt revived with his human body, he was created like all other demons. He has the book with his life, he has the same smell with Larcade, he also would be dead if Zefer dies because he is literally his magic creation.
Lucy had to rewrite his meaning to make him independent. And he is still a demon

The book is just the contract with the demon. The book is how demons are summoned from underworld and bound to Earthland.

Natsu is uniquely different in the sense that he was a dead human revived by injecting a demon into his body. From what we know, all the other demons were actual demons, with possible exception of Larcade (explained why, below).
END book doesn't give Natsu his physical body in Earthland, it just gives him his life through the demon summoned from it. For all other demons, the book gives them their physical form on Earthland (check Mard)

We don't know why Larcade smelled like Natsu. That's odd because NONE of the other demons smelled like Natsu, as far as we know. Twin dragons didn't notice the smell for demon gates, Mard or Bradman. All this suggests is that Larcade is the anomaly here, not the rule.
Maybe there was indeed a biological connection that Larcade had with Zeref, hence him appearing with Zeref in the afterlife.

Unrelated to main topic, but Demons of Zeref get sent back to underworld after he dies, because Zeref wrote the contract (book) that way. Which was why Lucy was able to avoid it. She rewrote the part where the contract expires after Zeref dies.
And yes, Natsu being alive means that the demon is alive as well, since demon is the only thing sustaining Natsu's life. But the demon is dormant (the seed is destroyed) and will never appear again.
If the book indeed wasn't rewritten. What would happen is, all demons of Zeref gets send back to underworld, hence they vanish without a trace, not just die. Their bodies won't remain on Earthland. But Natsu's dead body would remain, since only the demon within him would vanish

What were Lucy and Cana doing then

There was no sign that they fought, Cana had no scratch on her and showed no signs of exhaustion. While Gray took a beating and was sweating from exerting himself.

What were they doing? They probably went to capture others into cards, while Gray fought Mira and Elfman. Or just sat on their asses while bad mouthing Gray

 

[Biri Biri]

I personally disagree with the fact Natsu didn't count as a full demon just because he was in human form (Gray's attacks were also effective against human form Mard) and the fact he and Gray had close stats in Alvalez (ultimately I agree for speed, but I think the rest was Devil Slaying buffs), but I admit there's no-real proof, all we can do is make personal theories. I respect your opinion, but I don't share it.

Mard is a full fledged Etherious. Regardless of whether he chooses to transform into his Etherious form, or remain in his human appearance, he is a demon. The same thing cannot be said about Natsu, who is brought back to life as a human through demonic powers, and went on to possess the powers and characteristics of a dragon.

Spoiler

Natsu possessed the characteristics of a demon and dragon, and had both properties within him. He is, however, still a human at the end of the day.

Spoiler

It's normal to think that Natsu isn't especially weak towards devil slayer magic, since he isn't a proper Etherious to begin with. Natsu has fought several dragon slayers before in the past, and none of them had a notable effectiveness over the other. Since none of them are proper dragons. And because Natsu is a unique specimen in a sense that he is multi-racial (not our real world race, but FT world race), he is a hybrid.

Edit: I don't understand why people find it necessary to constantly bring up Mira and Elfman not being fresh in their off-panel loss to Gray. Gray, Natsu and Erza has consistently fought multiple battles in quick succession throughout the series. It's par for the course for them. Nobody brings them up when they have to do so and lost. So in Mira and Elfman's case, why is it necessary to do so for them? Furthermore, Mira and Elfman only had some scratches and surface-level bruise after their fight with Lucy and Diabolos. There were zero notable wounds on them. Compare the shape/condition they were in to Gray after he fought Ultear, and went on to fight Hades. Or after he fought Silver, and went on to fight Mard. Or even after he fought Invel, and went on to fight Natsu. He had grievous wounds across his body, with significant blood loss and actually reopened in his subsequent fights. Mira and Elfman were hardly what you call 'banged up', while in Gray's case, he was. Unless Mira and Elfman have horrible stamina, I don't see why is it a discredit towards Gray. Not to mention, it's 2 v 1 so they should have the numerical advantage.

 

[Sevently]

Jellal > Alvarez Gray >>>>>>> current Gray

 

[grey matter]

Technically Natsu had a demon SEED inside him, so he always was at least 1% demon but I see your point. But when his END mode woke up, he definitely counted as more than just 1% demon, even if his body LOOKED human. If the demon seed was able to take over his mind, then I think its corruption probably spread over 50% of his body, and destroying it made his full body return to normal (which didn't bring much physical changes since he never used his Etherious form).

I haven't seen the fight in a while so I admit my memories are blurry, but did they ever land PURELY physical hits? Because if they only traded "magical" punches, it's possible the Slayer Advantage crippled END's physical strength.

Anyway stats don't always scale the same way, someone could have amazing physical stats and not be the best in magic, or vice versa. So even if Gray and Natsu were close in physical strength, speed, etc, I still think Natsu had far more magical power, but Gray could match him thanks to his Slayer advantage.

When END woke up, yes, he was partly demon. Yea, I agree it's more than 1% for sure. But 50%? Nope. Look at Natsu throughout the fight, I'll put panels.

Beginning of the fight, Natsu looking pretty much fully human except for END "aura" surrounding him

Spoiler

They're also matching in their punches (which was what I referred to earlier)

Towards the end of the fight, Natsu became a bit more demonic. Getting demonic teeth and hands. (and another panel of them matching their punch)

Spoiler

This is the most demonic, that partial END ever got. You think this is 50% demonic? Highly doubt it. At most, 20%. IMO 10-20%

Even the most demonic that Natsu got, he was still mostly human. Any slaver advantage that Gray got, was towards the end of the fight. And that too minimal.

Again, their fight showed us that they were pretty much around each other. While the difference between Mard and Gray was like sky and Earth. Or, are you really suggesting that the gap between Gray and partial END was MORE than that between Gray and Mard?

 

[Ronin31]

Jellal > Alvarez Gray >>>>>>> current Gray

Alvaress Gray was far stronger than Jellal. Current Gray didn't still show his climax power level. Only Natsu did currently. We still have to see Gray and Erza's climax as well to make analogy with Alvaress.

As Gray won a battle vs Elfman and Mirajane (both exaust), I put that feat above Jellal actual power on current feat.

--- Double Post Merged, Nov 22, 2020, Original Post Date: Nov 22, 2020 ---

Edit: I don't understand why people find it necessary to constantly bring up Mira and Elfman not being fresh in their off-panel loss to Gray. Gray, Natsu and Erza has consistently fought multiple battles in quick succession throughout the series. It's par for the course for them. Nobody brings them up when they have to do so and lost. So in Mira and Elfman's case, why is it necessary to do so for them? Furthermore, Mira and Elfman only had some scratches and surface-level bruise after their fight with Lucy and Diabolos. There were zero notable wounds on them. Compare the shape/condition they were in to Gray after he fought Ultear, and went on to fight Hades. Or after he fought Silver, and went on to fight Mard. Or even after he fought Invel, and went on to fight Natsu. He had grievous wounds across his body, with significant blood loss and actually reopened in his subsequent fights. Mira and Elfman were hardly what you call 'banged up', while in Gray's case, he was. Unless Mira and Elfman have horrible stamina, I don't see why is it a discredit towards Gray. Not to mention, it's 2 v 1 so they should have the numerical advantage.

I agree. This is why I said Gray is above Mirajane and Elfman currently. He won his fight vs a team up, with Elfman having grown up his stats (see Leo's reactions). As well as he fought and won his rematch vs Raijinshou who blocked his Ice Magic access.

For me, his victories are not discredits but feats, as they are strong opponents. For me, beating Mirajane + Elfman is a stronger feat than Natsu beating Gajeel as a rematch.