Zeref and acnologia are connected, its not clear how, but I think that it is certain, maybe they both learned dragon slaying magic from the same dragon (black dragon acnologia, black mage zeref), or maybe its something else.
Zeref knew natsu before the s class wizard exam, zeref hasn't been seen in about 400 years, and natsu couldn't make it through a barrier that kept out stone statues and people over 80, so I'm guessing time there will be some sort of back story involving the pasts of the dragon slayers before the we see the end of this arc
The dragons and dragon slayers aren't the only things that could be the final driving parts of the story, we also know that fairy tail itself exists to find out if fairys really have tails, and I think that this along with lumen historie will point to the final plot being about the guild itself rather than an enemy that only a few mages in the guild even have the ability to injure
plus raven tail is still around, a guild made to destroy fairy tail, and that little demon cat thing that they had that was obviously more powerful than it let on, and also the last guild of the balam alliance.
I just think that there is still so much left for us to already be picking the final villain, unless actual fairies, zeref, acnologia, raven tail, lumen historie, history of the dragon slayers, last balam alliance guild, and the festival of the dragon king are all connected together, but I doubt that
---------- Post added at 08:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:27 AM ----------
I don't see why it couldn't be both Zeref and Acnologia. I really hope it turns out to be at least one of them as they're the only characters to have any foreshadowing.
Fairy Tail's biggest problem as a manga is that most bad guys end up switching sides after seeing Natsu get fired up, which means that no villains get a chance to develop (as villains) and Mashima has to constantly add new ones who the readers have no connection to. (Until they get their character redeeming moment of course)
It would be nice if Mashima stuck with Zeref and Acnologia instead of throwing someone new into the story right at the end, I want the final battle to involve a longstanding enemy and those two are the only ones who fit that description at this point.
zeref hasn't really been a villain much, magic he made in the past were enemies, but delioria was already beaten when it was freed, and lulaby was a joke, and other stuff that happend after that, like the tower of paradise and grimiore hearts attack, were done in his name, not by him personally, he's never really hurt anyone since his character has been introduced, except for members of dark guilds
And acnologia only appeared in a couple chapters, other than that the dragon king kind of just flies around, he attacked fairy tail because he thought they were food, other than that all we know is what he did in the past, kill dragons, and might do in a possible future, kill humans.
they aren't exactly long standing villains, zeref doesn't want to fight and acnologia just likes to eat humans, idk if they fit the long standing enemy criteria
but at this point, I feel like it is directing towards Acnologia.
