User blog comment:Leland Davis/FACE theories/@comment-24066070-20141014055017/@comment-24066070-20141015070835

Most of the Demon Gates are gone anyway and Tartarus' main force would consist of the footsoldiers or Lamy clones. Neither of these are very strong in their own right, so they can certainly be taken down with martial arts or tools.

Or do you honestly expect E.N.D. to personally walk across the continent looking for humans to kill? That's not what main villains do.

Furthermore, mages like Erza and Kagura rely mostly on weapons (swords in their case) to win. Even if Archenemy and Benizakura are magical swords that may lose their power, they can still wield an other sword and rely on their expert swordfighting skills + agility to fight.

Then you still got mages like Gildarts, Bacchus and Racer who heavily rely on physical combat. Certainly, Racer won't be able to slow things down anymore or Bacchus can't use his Palm Magic for additional power to his punches, but they will still be able to fight.

Gildarts managed to easily hold his own against Natsu and beat Byro with just hand-to-hand combat, so he can still put on a decent fight.