Category:Four Heavenly Knights

The Four Heavenly Knights (Japanese: 四天王 Shitennō) are four extremely powerful monsters that serve as the enforcers of the current Monster Lord, Alice (XVI).

Their identities are:
 * Alma Elma: The whimsical Queen Succubus and master of martial arts and wind magic. She has a carefree personality but is vastly unknown to her other Heavenly Knights and the Monster Lord.
 * Tamamo: The playful Queen Kitsune and master of earth magic. She is very loyal to the Monster Lords, supposedly having mentored them five generations straight according to a rumor, and frequently tutors them and sometimes others.
 * Erubetie: The stoic Queen Slime and a master of water magic. She despises humans due to them polluting waters and thus making them uninhabitable to her brethren.
 * Granberia: A dragonkin swordswoman and master of the Cursed Sword style, proficient in all four elements with her main one being fire. Her swordplay is unmatched and she desires strong opponents to rival her.

Usually when a Monster Lord is selected, the heir to the throne may receive a challenger, such as Cassandra during Alice XV (Fifteenth)'s coronation. However, during the last coronation, four powerful monsters rose to challenge Alice XVI.

Each competitor had their own reasons for partaking in the battle: Alma Elma simply viewed the competition as fun; Tamamo, who was Alice's surrogate mother and the mentor of many Monster Lords before her, felt that Alice was outnumbered and could possibly be unfairly overwhelmed if she did not step in; Erubetie planned to use the position of Monster Lord to eradicate the humans due to their oppression on the slimes; and Granberia wished to test her skill against the daughter of the previous Monster Lord, having no intention of claiming the throne whatsoever.

Over the course of the battle, Alma Elma left the match early purely on a whim and Tamamo and Erubetie knocked each other out simultaneously, which left Granberia to battle Alice. Granberia managed to bring Alice "to her knees" until the Lamia saw every move that the dragonkin had at her disposal and claimed victory.

After being defeated by Alice for the right to the Monster Lord’s throne, the other combatants became the Four Heavenly Knights. This was done to aid the Monster Lord in keeping the the balance of power in the monster race. That doesn't mean, however, that the Monster Lord controls them, seeing they all tend to do their own things, some of which Alice does not approve.

All four Knights have very different opinions on Luka. Tamamo acts like a tutor, Granberia tests him for his skills as a possible rival, Alma Elma treats him nonchalantly and seemingly only teasing him when the two battle, and Erubetie initially wants to outright kill him due to her intense hatred of the human race. Luka views each Knight as an obstacle to coexistence between humans and monsters as their actions often tend to affect humans negatively, but nonetheless holds respect for them and hopes for them to agree to coexistence.

Although players speculate that there is some form of tier or ranking system within the Heavenly Knights due to their differences in HP and level, the order they are fought, and the nature of the competition to see who would succeed the throne, they act more like knights of the round table. When Alice is questioned by Luka about their levels of ability, she states that, although they have their own strengths and weaknesses in various situations, they all have the same level of raw power. For instance, Alma’s speed and hand-to-hand fighting is unmatched, while Granberia’s swordplay is second to none.

All Heavenly Knights are capable of teleportation and telepathy and are said to possess abilities associated with a particular element. Alma Elma is associated with wind, Tamamo with earth, Erubetie with water, and Granberia with fire. However, it is possible for the knights to use skills that are associated with different elements, as seen with Granberia who displays mastery over all four elements, and Tamamo who is also shown using fire.

Under Goddess Ilias’s order, Promestein created several special chimeras, the Next Dolls, to deal with the Heavenly Knights. These were called Hainuwele, Amphisbaena, Tsukuyomi and Arc-En-Ciel, who respectively counter Alma Elma, Erubetie, Tamamo, and Granberia. Promestein analyzed the Heavenly Knights and engineered these four chimeras to defeat them by taking advantage of their weaknesses or overpowering them. The fifth Next Doll, Rapunzel, was not engineered to counter any of them.

Trivia

 * The Japanese name, 四天王 Shitennō, translates to the Four Heavenly Kings, which references the Buddhist deities who watch over the four gates of heaven. The renaming from "King" to "Knight" during translation may have been because they are of lower status than the Monster Lord. Additionally, Granberia and Alma Elma do not act as leaders of their own race, even if the latter does possess the title "Queen".
 * Although the Four Heavenly Knights in the game are linked to elements via the Four Spirits, the traditional iteration of the legend does not link the four kings to the classical elements.
 * However, the original legend does state that each king is a guardian of a direction (North, East, South and West). Though not linked to the Four Heavenly Knights, this extends to another set of four monsters being associated with this part of the legend.