Knights of God

Sourced from the Holy Land of Mary Geoise, this order forms an elite company of warriors handed authority above the World Nobles themselves. At the peak of their hierarchy sits a Supreme Commander, with a Commander just below, and the whole body ultimately obeys Imu. Their base is a Mary Geoise temple named Shangara. Because at most thirteen individuals may bear the Abyssal and Depths Covenants at once, and the Five Elders are among those bearers, the count of full knights is reckoned to be no greater than eight.

Serving under the knights proper are squire-like juniors known as the Devoted Blades of God. A Devoted Blade can rise to knighthood once he has proven himself over enough assignments, though the span differs by person: Shanks was slated to advance after just one year, while the outsider Harald required a decade. Most Devoted Blades stay ignorant that Imu even exists right up to their knighting at the Empty Throne, where the ruler fastens the Depths Covenant onto their body.

Though they hold the mightiest policing power to be found anywhere, the Knights hand routine enforcement to the Marines and act only in chosen cases. Their focus rests mainly on Mary Geoise, where they alone may adjudicate feuds between World Nobles, and the Supreme Commander serves as judge, empowered to sentence even a Celestial Dragon to death for a proven crime. Should a grave enough menace threaten the Holy Land, the order rallies as a backup to the usual Marine guard, and at Imu's bidding they undertake scattered errands beyond it, such as the violent annexation of Elbaph or the retrieval of Princess Shuri, taken years before from the Esperia Kingdom.

In place of the bulky white suits, resin bubbles, and glass helmets other Nobles don to seal themselves off from commoners, the Knights prefer ornate black military garb on duty, sometimes armor, and hooded cloaks while abroad. For all that they shun the coarser vices of ordinary Celestial Dragons, they share the same arrogance, reckoning themselves gods and framing an invitation to their ranks as a divine miracle, and they harm or slay commoners at whim. They likewise join the Native Hunting Competitions, where their greater combat power makes them heavy favorites to triumph.

Figarland Garling headed the order as Supreme Commander before ascending to the Five Elders, a rise that leaves his place among the Knights uncertain. His son Figarland Shamrock, the group's Commander, is the other pivotal figure; Maffey once served, and Manmayer Gunko climbed from Princess Shuri of Esperia into the ranks. Royals recur throughout, Harald and Loki being further instances. On God Valley thirty-eight years past, several unnamed knights stood with Garling, among them a rifle-bearing Manmayer woman, a lance-wielder with a rose pinned in her hair, a scythe-wielder masked by a cow-like skull, and a beastlike elder crowned with horns and wings.

The order's strength rests on the Covenant, a badge of bondage to Imu that bestows superhuman power, command of the Abyss for instant travel and summoning, and an immortality letting members mend from nearly any injury. Those blessings arrive at the cost of utter obedience, for Imu may override a knight's will and even commandeer his body. Their might showed when just three of them were dispatched to break the giants of Elbaph, and the record notes their battles with the Rocks Pirates at God Valley and, in the years after, the repeated defeats the Roger Pirates handed them, with Garling claiming the champion title only by dispatching an already-beaten Rocks D. Xebec.