Black Clover Leaves Asta on Bloody Cliffhanger
Black Clover has kicked off the final arc of the series with a bang, and the newest chapter has left Asta in quite the deadly cliffhanger in the first battle with the big enemy! The end of the Spade Kingdom Raid saga revealed that the fourth Zogratis sibling, Lucius, was actually hiding out in the body of the Wizard King this entire time. Following the end of that arc, series creator Yuki Tabata took a few months off to prepare for the final arc of the series overall. Now that this final arc has truly begun, the series has wasted no time in getting to the thick of it.
The previous chapter of the series saw Lucius Zogratis making his move on Asta and the others in the Clover Kingdom fifteen months following all of the fights in the Spade Kingdom. Asta was the only one who was free to move through Lucius' time spells thanks to his anti-magic powers, and the newest chapter of the series has kicked off the fight between the two. Unfortunately, the end of the chapter confirmed that there's still a wide gap in between Asta and Lucius' power with Asta's major loss.
Chapter 334 of Black Clover reveals that Asta had been able to strengthen his Devil Union in order to extend his time limit, and thus he's able to keep up with Lucius' power early on. His anti-magic is the perfect counter to Lucius' power, but Lucius' hand to hand fighting skills and strength have been copied after he absorbed Lucifero. Then things take a turn for the worst as Lucius reveals he's been holding back his true power, a new kind of magic he dubs as "Soul Magic," and with that things get even worse for Asta.
Soon Lucius takes Sister Lily hostage, alters her mind with his magic, and Asta is so shocked by this that Lucius is able to strike him right through the chest. Asta is then falling to the Earth in a bloodied heap as the chapter of the series comes to an end, and now it remains to be seen how Asta will recover from this one. While he will likely be ready to fight back physically soon enough, this kind of mental attack will certainly haunt him as the final arc of the series continues.
It's a showing of just how deadly Lucius is going to be, and now the entire Clover Kingdom is going to need to step up in order to somehow survive all of this. But what did you think of Asta's first fight with Lucius? How will he win? Let us know all of your thoughts about it in the comments! You can even reach out to me directly about all things animated and other cool stuff @Valdezology on Twitter!