Did Fairy Tail Really Just Kill SPOILER?

Fairy Tail’s final season has been embroiled in a major war as Ishgar tries to fend off the incoming invasion from Zeref and the Alvarez Empire. While the stakes have been high, Fairy Tail‘s many losses so far have admittedly not felt too real. No matter how hard the Spriggan 12 made things for Natsu and the others, it never quite felt like any of our favorites were in any real trouble as someone always come along to save them.

But…that does not seem to be the case anymore with the latest episode of the series. Episode 309 has a prominent casualty that had laid down their life in order to protect the rest of the Fairy Tail guild. Spoilers for Fairy Tail Episode 309 below!

As Makarov and the remaining members of the various Ishgar guilds are running low on stamina, Irene makes the situation tougher when she casts a berserker spell on the Alvarez soldiers and multiplies their strength. They begin to tear through Fairy Tail’s fighters with ease, and Makarov begins to hate the sight of his children suffering.

He then decides to enact his Fairy Law spell. This will eliminated all of his enemies and protect his allies, but as Mavis the First Master explains, the more enemies there are the more the spell will drain his life force. Makarov knows that using Fairy Law will, in fact, kill him. But he doesn’t care as he’ll use it with as much determination as he can muster.

Using Fairy Law, he eliminates the massive berserker army and clears a path for the remaining Fairy Tail fighters. But with this spell, Makarov also sealed his fate as he’s been frozen as a statue and loses his life. With Makarov dead, this adds a heavier toll to carry Fairy Tail through the rest of this war. But that’s if Makarov is truly dead. Gajeel died in an earlier episode this final season, and came back a few episodes later so there’s still hope but it’s looking grim now.

Fairy Tail was originally created by Hiro Mashima for Kodansha’s Weekly Shonen Magazine, running from 2006 to 2017 and selling over 60 million copies. The series is set in a fantasy world full of magic following Natsu Dragneel, a fire breathing wizard with the powers of a dragon who is in search of his missing foster father, the dragon Igneel. As he and his wizarding guild Fairy Tail get into adventures, Natsu always tries to find a way to succeed.

The series was later adapted into an anime by A-1 Pictures, Dentsu Inc., and Satelight in 2009 and ended its first run in 2013. A second season ran from 2014 to 2016, and the third season serves as the final one. If you’re itching for more Fairy Tail right now, Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest is an official manga sequel to the original series featuring original storyboards provided by Hiro Mashima and illustrated by Atsuo Ueda. The series picks up right where the original manga ends as Natsu, Lucy, and the others embark on the “100 Years Quest” that no mage has ever completed before.