Gray, you ass.
Zeref has more minions than he knows what to do with.
I'm not feeling these new villain designs, and I'm skeptical they're stronger or closer to Zeref than Tartaros was. OTOH, Gray's deemed them worthwhile to (presumably) infiltrate for Zeref leads, so they can't be complete trash.
Oddly enough, the half of Gray that's demonized is opposite from the half he demonized to tank Memento Mori.