Say what you want about Black Clover, but this is quintessential shounen at it's finest.
With this volume we get the reveal that an actual Devil has been behind everything. He manipulated the human royalty into killing all of the elves 500 years ago. He was the one who reanimated all of the elves in the present. He was the one who used Patry to get himself a body again. He literally did everything.
Essentially, he's a bad bad guy.
This reveal was actually quite good, because I think we all knew that there was more to what happened 500 years ago then meets the eye. It always seemed way to cut and dry from the beginning. However, this Devil is not he Devil living in Asta's grimoire, so I have many questions regarding that.
Also, the fight scenes in this volume are superb. While I will happily admit that Asta is essentially the wizard version of Naruto at this point, complete with Talk no Jutsu and all, Tabata's art style is so great for fight scenes, that you can kind of ignore it. Even though there is a lot of black going on throughout this volume, it never felt muddied, and the Devil's spells are ominous as all hell. This is going to be a tough fight for Asta and Yuno, but I am sure they will get through it in typical shounen manga protagonist fashion. By having random power ups mid fight thanks to the power of friendship, and sheer determination.
And, yes, it is cliche as all hell, but it is still entertaining, and that is what I am here for.