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Rejoice, o hungry children, for I have cooked.
This topic is something I've brought up many times in various discussions regarding the series. However, perhaps because I haven't quite mastered the search function on this forum, it's often been a struggle to look up my previous writings on the matter. To that end I decided to finally organize everything into a single post that would be easy to find in case I ever need to reference it in the future.
To preface what I'm about to say, I'm not a Biblical scholar, in fact I'm not even religious, so this is not intended to be a deep dive into theology. If anything, given that Nakaba's use of religious themes in his manga is fairly surface level, it only makes sense to try to match the analysis to that. This also comes with the additional advantage in that it should be relatively easy to follow along regardless of your faith or lack thereof as long as you have a rudimentary understanding of Christianity and its central concepts. I'll include links to Wikipedia where appropriate for concepts that may not be common knowledge.
First things first, since some people might be skeptical of the very idea of Nakaba dipping into religion, I'd like to remind everyone that this is really nothing new. The Seven Deadly Sins originate from Christian theology, the Ten Commandments appear directly in the Old Testament and the Four Knights(written with the same character as horsemen in Japanese) of the Apocalypse are featured in the New Testament. Other Biblical concepts that have appeared in the series in some capacity include Purgatory, Elizabeth's 'Let There Be Light' technique, the archangels, the Nephilim, Behemoth, as well as some smaller references such as goddess spells named after figures like Jonah and Job. Point being, while the Arthurian legends are clearly the primary inspiration, it's abundantly clear that Biblical elements also play a major role in Nakaba's creative process when it comes to this series.
I will begin my analysis by examining the more established Biblical parallels before expanding into more speculative territory and then finish with wilder theories regarding story developments we might see in the future, with a focus on the endgame of the series.
1. Arthur as Christ
Perhaps the most important aspect when it comes to this entire topic is Arthur being a stand-in for Christ, so that serves as the obvious starting point. In hindsight there were already hints regarding this melding of the two figures quite early on, but I didn't properly pick up on them until the recent reveal of the Holy Grail. The quest for the Grail has been a major element in the Arthurian legends since some of their earliest iterations. The Grail itself eventually came to be connected to the Holy Chalice, which was the cup used to catch the blood of Christ during the Crucifixion, the idea being that this event turned the vessel into a kind of divine artifact with miraculous powers, hence the importance of acquiring it. The connection to Christ's blood is very interesting given that the Grail in this manga was literally formed out of Arthur's blood, hence why it seems like Nakaba is making Arthur represent or at least embody aspects of Jesus.
Upon making this observation a lot of things click into place to support the interpretation. The most prominent element is the manner in which Arthur became the King of Chaos by essentially dying and then being resurrected from death by a godly power. This is reminiscent of Jesus dying on the cross and then coming back from the dead after three days so that he could ascend to heaven. I don't remember if Nakaba ever explicitly stated how long the time frame between Arthur stabbing himself and then getting revived was, but my impression after skimming through that part of the manga is that it only took a few days as well. In case you're wondering, yes, it does seem like there is meant to be a parallel between Chaos and God as well. Chaos is the creation deity of the setting and, while it didn't explicitly create "man in its own image", the human clan did end up being its favorite due to resembling it the most, so a similar idea of humanity being closer to God than other lifeforms is still very much present.
Another detail that stands out is Arthur's saintlike portrayal as someone extremely righteous, kind and noble, even in childhood as attested to by Kay. On that note, Kay's flashback left Arthur's origins a mystery since all we saw was Uther suddenly adopting the boy one day. I think there is a good chance that Arthur is not a normal human and was instead a direct creation of Chaos that was born in an unusual manner, perhaps even in the form of a virgin birth akin to Jesus.
One last thing worth mentioning when it comes to this section are the recurring design elements Nakaba has used for Arthur:
Both his first sword as well as the clothes he wore in NnT were decorated with crosses, quite fitting for a figure related to Christ I would say. Curiously, these crosses were also present on the spear that Lancelot was shown wielding in Guinevere's prophecy:
Given the deviations from the vision it's still unclear whether this is Lancelot's ST or some other weapon entirely, but if this ends up being the spear that Dubs crafted using Arthur's blood then the crosses in the design could easily be a way to visually display the influence of that enchantment. Such a trait would be quite appropriate for a spear called Rhongomyniad, the name of Arthur's spear in the legends, or Longinus, named after the soldier who stabbed Christ during the Crucifixion, though if it's indeed Lancelot's ST then it will most likely just be called Arondight.
2. Characters connected to Arthur
Moving the scope of our analysis beyond Arthur himself and to other characters closely related to him we have both enemies and allies to discuss. First there is Cath, who appears to play the role of the Antichrist as someone who seeks to substitute himself in Christ's place, going so far as to take on Arthur's name and appearance while masquerading as him. I think this point is also supported by a detail that many people may have forgotten or perhaps never discovered at all, that being how Arthur and Cath actually share the same birthday, strongly suggesting that Nakaba always intended for these characters to be connected on a deeper level. The two are essentially opposites with how Arthur embodies saintlike virtue and kindness while Cath is a literal incarnation of malice with entirely evil intentions. This juxtaposition is reflected in their goals too since Arthur's original vision for his eternal kingdom is more or less the antithesis of Cath's desire to destroy everything. You could even interpret Arthur's ideal Camelot as an allusion to heaven as an eternal utopia. There is an alternative reading of Cath's role as well, which I'll get to a little later.
Examining these established figures is a fairly straightforward task, but what I'm really interested in is the more speculative stuff. To that end I'm now going to bring up the Knights of the Round Table as I often like to do. Nakaba has been steadily introducing more and more characters named after well-known canonical members of said order of knights, which makes me quite confident that we will see the group be formally established in the future, and probably quite soon at that. We of course can't know the exact composition of the Round Table in advance, in fact the number of members varies wildly even in the legends, but given that Arthur is on the cusp of recovering his powers while also taking into account the constraints of weekly manga as a medium it seems likely that Nakaba will go with Arthur and 12 others, a lineup that has been utilized in the Arthurian legends as well.
This number is quite interesting in the context of Arthur being a representation of Christ, because Jesus's disciples or apostles also numbered 12. What's more, we've already seen Arthur sharing his blood in a cup with some of this future knights, which seems like a blatant parallel to Jesus sharing wine with his disciples, calling it "the blood of his covenant". Arthur, too, is now tied to his disciples through his very blood. We can go further still when we consider that one of those disciples, Judas Iscariot, ultimately betrayed his master. Given that Nakaba has so far reused four of the six Arthurian characters(Morgan, Mordred, Galahad, Gareth, Bors and Balin) he featured in his Chiguhagu Lovers manga in this series, there is a very good chance that Mordred will show up sooner or later too, especially considering how important of a figure he is. If Mordred's role in this story is going to be even remotely similar to his famous depictions in the legends, then he is eventually going to end up betraying Arthur and thus playing the part of Judas the traitor.
3. Potential future developments
The final aspect of this topic I want to touch upon is the namesake of the series, i.e. the apocalypse during which the Four Horsemen appear, as depicted in the Book of Revelation. The fact that an actual end of the world prophecy involving the KotA was brought up at the very beginning of the manga suggests that this event has a good chance of actually taking place in some form. It's of course important to keep in mind that just like how the Arthurian elements in the series are not a one-to-one adaptation of the legends the apocalypse would not be the exact same one as in the Bible either. Rather, what we can expect is an original story that features some of the main elements of the "source material" so to speak. For this reason I think it's useful to examine the Biblical apocalypse from the same angle by focusing on the aspects that stand out as particularly noteworthy.
Since it's not really related to the main subject I want to discuss I'm going to first briefly cover the Revelation's obsession with the number seven. There are seven seals that are opened, angels blowing seven trumpets, seven bowls of divine wrath poured on the wicked, a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes, as well as a dragon and a beast both with seven heads. Based on Nabaka's use of previous numerical groups such as the Seven Deadly Sins and the Ten Commandments, I think it's highly likely that one of the these entities related to the number seven could inspire a new villain organization that opposes the KotA. The enemies calling themselves Seven Trumpets would perhaps be a bit silly, so my money would be on something like Seven Heads relating to the heads of the dragon and the beast. The heads coming together could even symbolically form the beast. Alternatively the number could also be ten because both the dragon and the beast have ten horns on their heads, but the TC already exist and having two completely unrelated villain groups with the same number of members would be a little wonky. Seven works better, especially if you make it so that the leader was inspired by the legendary Sins to create this group.
3.1 The Dragon
Perhaps the most notable element to consider when it comes to the events of the Book of Revelation are the beasts, of which there are three(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_(Revelation)): the dragon, the beast of the sea and the beast of the earth. The dragon is explicitly stated to be Satan who needs no introduction. If a figure like this appears in the series then they will likely be the main threat during the apocalypse and by extension the primary antagonist of the series. This idea may sound a little out there, but there might actually be some setup for this already in place. We've known since early into NnT that the Coffin of Eternal Darkness depicts the four clans that were involved in sealing away the demons, but it was only revealed in the sequel that the dragon handle that makes up the centerpiece of the Coffin mural represents a "Dragon of Chaos":
As of the time of writing it's unknown what this entity is and why it was considered important enough to be included as part of the mural despite not taking part in the sealing of the demons.
What we do know is that Nakaba made the decision to bring back both the Coffin as a whole as well as the dragon handle on its own in the sequel, which suggests that their role in the story may not be over yet. The handle is particularly notable given how there was that one instance in which a ghostly dragon appeared to manifest from within the handle:
It's possible that this could have simply been a visual representation of Meliodas's intimidating aura, but its similarity to the handle specifically is quite an interesting choice, especially when we have not seen other characters do anything like this with their weapons. If the ghost was not related to Meliodas then the dragon handle could be more than just a mere representation of some mysterious Dragon of Chaos. In case you're wondering why Oslo was the only one able to see it, this could perhaps relate to his species being called 'black hounds', which is a reference to hellhounds connected to the devil originating from English folklore(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_dog_(folklore)).
Another dragon-related detail that stands out is the Dragon Back-Bone "mountain" that Sin teleported Percival and Donny to while escaping from Pellegarde:
Despite the name identifying it as part of a dragon's skeleton the structure is easily a hundred if not a thousand times larger than any dragon that has ever appeared in the series. We have also never seen or even heard mention of any other such skeletons during all of the heroes' travels across Britannia even though they should be very easy to spot, which suggests that it could be one of a kind. If some Dragon of Chaos once existed in the past and its spirit is now sealed within the dragon handle then I would guess that the gigantic skeleton is what remains of its body. Things get even more interesting when we recall that the first time Percival and the audience heard the prophecy regarding the KotA was on top of this very skeleton. If Nakaba planned to make this mysterious dragon into a major villain or perhaps even an endgame threat, then it was a clever move to have the initial reveal of the apocalypse take place on top of said dragon's body, especially if it also turns out that the same dragon is connected to the dragon handle that appeared all the way back in chapter 1 of the previous series. Talk about a callback.
As a side note, an alternative interpretation of this Dragon of Chaos is that it actually represents Arthur, whose surname is of course Pendragon. In this case said dragon would be more of a benevolent figure rather than a stand-in for Satan, but I personally find this option unlikely given that the dragon handle has never been implied to have anything to do with Arthur. It's also possible that Nakaba could be setting up a battle of two distinct dragons, as an allusion to the tale of the dueling dragons told in Historia Britonum that helped popularize the stories of King Arthur: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinas_Emrys#Literary_tradition
3.2 The two other beasts
Beyond the Dragon or Satan who is the most important of the three we have the beast of the sea, interpreted to represent the Antichrist, and the beast of the earth, identified as the false prophet. I previously described Cath as Nakaba's take on the Antichrist but mentioned that there is another option as well, that being the false prophet. I say this primarily because the Antichrist is a more important figure than the false prophet, so it would perhaps make more sense to place Cath in the latter role if other villains are going to take his place soon. It helps that Cath luring people to his fake version of Camelot through deceitful promises would make him an appropriate parallel to the false prophet as well with how he's essentially trying to lead people away from the real Arthur.
If we take Cath as the false prophet then in that case the role of the Antichrist would have to be played by someone else, with Morgan le Fay being perhaps the most likely candidate. In the legends she is closely related to Arthur so it wouldn't be that difficult to portray her in such a way that she could be considered Arthur's antithesis. Another option would be the depict her as the Whore of Babylon(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whore_of_Babylon) given that the latter is a prominent and explicitly female figure present during the apocalypse, unlike the beasts. The figure is described to be carrying a golden cup, which would connect nicely to the whole Holy Grail business if she ends up stealing it or something along those lines. I mention this because the mention of the cup is a basic enough element that Nakaba would have realistically come across it while reading through the Book of Revelation as part of planning the manga, and it's something that would definitely stand out when you're already in the mindset of writing an Arthurian story featuring the Grail. I'm not sure who the Antichrist would be in this case though. I guess Mordred would pretty much be the only option, unless the Lady of the Lake's aquatic monster body is meant to be a very literal depiction of a beast from the sea.
The last topic I want to address is that while the beast of the sea and the beast of the earth appear in the New Testament, the Old Testament also features a giant sea monster in the form of Leviathan as well as a giant land monster in the form of Behemoth. These entities are unrelated outside of sharing similar themes, but it's possible that Nakaba could choose to meld them together in a more direct way, even if I'd personally prefer to keep them separate. In the Bible the latter duo are a pair of monsters that embody chaos, so it's not surprising that one of them was already included in this series. Behemoth was ultimately pacified and put to sleep by Percival, but that's not a permanent solution to the threat it poses so it will presumably have to be put down for good sooner or later. That could happen imminently or it could be postponed all the way until the apocalypse, which I expect to be featured in the final arc of the series.
4. Conclusion
In summary, I think the blatant Biblical connections between Arthur and Christ are quite fitting and I believe they extend to other major characters like Cath as well. Contrary to some theories I've seen I doubt Chaos is going to become a villain given its parallels to God in terms of loving its creations and leaving their salvation in the hands of his chosen messiah. Instead I expect future enemies to be comprised of figures related to the Biblical apocalypse, primarily the beasts. It's possible that Nakaba could choose to mirror NnT's structure where Hendrickson gave way to the TC who were ultimately replaced by the DK with a similar relay format where the role of the main villain passes from beast to beast, starting with Cath(the beast of the earth) and then the beast of the sea before eventually culminating in either an allusion to or a direct depiction of Satan(the dragon). If the dragon is essentially like the DK then the beast of the sea would be the Zeldris who's in charge of the dragon's elite henchmen. Morgan would be a good fit for that position, but we'll see how things go. I might add to this post/thread in the future if something new comes up. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
This topic is something I've brought up many times in various discussions regarding the series. However, perhaps because I haven't quite mastered the search function on this forum, it's often been a struggle to look up my previous writings on the matter. To that end I decided to finally organize everything into a single post that would be easy to find in case I ever need to reference it in the future.
To preface what I'm about to say, I'm not a Biblical scholar, in fact I'm not even religious, so this is not intended to be a deep dive into theology. If anything, given that Nakaba's use of religious themes in his manga is fairly surface level, it only makes sense to try to match the analysis to that. This also comes with the additional advantage in that it should be relatively easy to follow along regardless of your faith or lack thereof as long as you have a rudimentary understanding of Christianity and its central concepts. I'll include links to Wikipedia where appropriate for concepts that may not be common knowledge.
First things first, since some people might be skeptical of the very idea of Nakaba dipping into religion, I'd like to remind everyone that this is really nothing new. The Seven Deadly Sins originate from Christian theology, the Ten Commandments appear directly in the Old Testament and the Four Knights(written with the same character as horsemen in Japanese) of the Apocalypse are featured in the New Testament. Other Biblical concepts that have appeared in the series in some capacity include Purgatory, Elizabeth's 'Let There Be Light' technique, the archangels, the Nephilim, Behemoth, as well as some smaller references such as goddess spells named after figures like Jonah and Job. Point being, while the Arthurian legends are clearly the primary inspiration, it's abundantly clear that Biblical elements also play a major role in Nakaba's creative process when it comes to this series.
I will begin my analysis by examining the more established Biblical parallels before expanding into more speculative territory and then finish with wilder theories regarding story developments we might see in the future, with a focus on the endgame of the series.
1. Arthur as Christ
Perhaps the most important aspect when it comes to this entire topic is Arthur being a stand-in for Christ, so that serves as the obvious starting point. In hindsight there were already hints regarding this melding of the two figures quite early on, but I didn't properly pick up on them until the recent reveal of the Holy Grail. The quest for the Grail has been a major element in the Arthurian legends since some of their earliest iterations. The Grail itself eventually came to be connected to the Holy Chalice, which was the cup used to catch the blood of Christ during the Crucifixion, the idea being that this event turned the vessel into a kind of divine artifact with miraculous powers, hence the importance of acquiring it. The connection to Christ's blood is very interesting given that the Grail in this manga was literally formed out of Arthur's blood, hence why it seems like Nakaba is making Arthur represent or at least embody aspects of Jesus.
Upon making this observation a lot of things click into place to support the interpretation. The most prominent element is the manner in which Arthur became the King of Chaos by essentially dying and then being resurrected from death by a godly power. This is reminiscent of Jesus dying on the cross and then coming back from the dead after three days so that he could ascend to heaven. I don't remember if Nakaba ever explicitly stated how long the time frame between Arthur stabbing himself and then getting revived was, but my impression after skimming through that part of the manga is that it only took a few days as well. In case you're wondering, yes, it does seem like there is meant to be a parallel between Chaos and God as well. Chaos is the creation deity of the setting and, while it didn't explicitly create "man in its own image", the human clan did end up being its favorite due to resembling it the most, so a similar idea of humanity being closer to God than other lifeforms is still very much present.
Another detail that stands out is Arthur's saintlike portrayal as someone extremely righteous, kind and noble, even in childhood as attested to by Kay. On that note, Kay's flashback left Arthur's origins a mystery since all we saw was Uther suddenly adopting the boy one day. I think there is a good chance that Arthur is not a normal human and was instead a direct creation of Chaos that was born in an unusual manner, perhaps even in the form of a virgin birth akin to Jesus.
One last thing worth mentioning when it comes to this section are the recurring design elements Nakaba has used for Arthur:
2. Characters connected to Arthur
Moving the scope of our analysis beyond Arthur himself and to other characters closely related to him we have both enemies and allies to discuss. First there is Cath, who appears to play the role of the Antichrist as someone who seeks to substitute himself in Christ's place, going so far as to take on Arthur's name and appearance while masquerading as him. I think this point is also supported by a detail that many people may have forgotten or perhaps never discovered at all, that being how Arthur and Cath actually share the same birthday, strongly suggesting that Nakaba always intended for these characters to be connected on a deeper level. The two are essentially opposites with how Arthur embodies saintlike virtue and kindness while Cath is a literal incarnation of malice with entirely evil intentions. This juxtaposition is reflected in their goals too since Arthur's original vision for his eternal kingdom is more or less the antithesis of Cath's desire to destroy everything. You could even interpret Arthur's ideal Camelot as an allusion to heaven as an eternal utopia. There is an alternative reading of Cath's role as well, which I'll get to a little later.
Examining these established figures is a fairly straightforward task, but what I'm really interested in is the more speculative stuff. To that end I'm now going to bring up the Knights of the Round Table as I often like to do. Nakaba has been steadily introducing more and more characters named after well-known canonical members of said order of knights, which makes me quite confident that we will see the group be formally established in the future, and probably quite soon at that. We of course can't know the exact composition of the Round Table in advance, in fact the number of members varies wildly even in the legends, but given that Arthur is on the cusp of recovering his powers while also taking into account the constraints of weekly manga as a medium it seems likely that Nakaba will go with Arthur and 12 others, a lineup that has been utilized in the Arthurian legends as well.
This number is quite interesting in the context of Arthur being a representation of Christ, because Jesus's disciples or apostles also numbered 12. What's more, we've already seen Arthur sharing his blood in a cup with some of this future knights, which seems like a blatant parallel to Jesus sharing wine with his disciples, calling it "the blood of his covenant". Arthur, too, is now tied to his disciples through his very blood. We can go further still when we consider that one of those disciples, Judas Iscariot, ultimately betrayed his master. Given that Nakaba has so far reused four of the six Arthurian characters(Morgan, Mordred, Galahad, Gareth, Bors and Balin) he featured in his Chiguhagu Lovers manga in this series, there is a very good chance that Mordred will show up sooner or later too, especially considering how important of a figure he is. If Mordred's role in this story is going to be even remotely similar to his famous depictions in the legends, then he is eventually going to end up betraying Arthur and thus playing the part of Judas the traitor.
3. Potential future developments
The final aspect of this topic I want to touch upon is the namesake of the series, i.e. the apocalypse during which the Four Horsemen appear, as depicted in the Book of Revelation. The fact that an actual end of the world prophecy involving the KotA was brought up at the very beginning of the manga suggests that this event has a good chance of actually taking place in some form. It's of course important to keep in mind that just like how the Arthurian elements in the series are not a one-to-one adaptation of the legends the apocalypse would not be the exact same one as in the Bible either. Rather, what we can expect is an original story that features some of the main elements of the "source material" so to speak. For this reason I think it's useful to examine the Biblical apocalypse from the same angle by focusing on the aspects that stand out as particularly noteworthy.
Since it's not really related to the main subject I want to discuss I'm going to first briefly cover the Revelation's obsession with the number seven. There are seven seals that are opened, angels blowing seven trumpets, seven bowls of divine wrath poured on the wicked, a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes, as well as a dragon and a beast both with seven heads. Based on Nabaka's use of previous numerical groups such as the Seven Deadly Sins and the Ten Commandments, I think it's highly likely that one of the these entities related to the number seven could inspire a new villain organization that opposes the KotA. The enemies calling themselves Seven Trumpets would perhaps be a bit silly, so my money would be on something like Seven Heads relating to the heads of the dragon and the beast. The heads coming together could even symbolically form the beast. Alternatively the number could also be ten because both the dragon and the beast have ten horns on their heads, but the TC already exist and having two completely unrelated villain groups with the same number of members would be a little wonky. Seven works better, especially if you make it so that the leader was inspired by the legendary Sins to create this group.
3.1 The Dragon
Perhaps the most notable element to consider when it comes to the events of the Book of Revelation are the beasts, of which there are three(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_(Revelation)): the dragon, the beast of the sea and the beast of the earth. The dragon is explicitly stated to be Satan who needs no introduction. If a figure like this appears in the series then they will likely be the main threat during the apocalypse and by extension the primary antagonist of the series. This idea may sound a little out there, but there might actually be some setup for this already in place. We've known since early into NnT that the Coffin of Eternal Darkness depicts the four clans that were involved in sealing away the demons, but it was only revealed in the sequel that the dragon handle that makes up the centerpiece of the Coffin mural represents a "Dragon of Chaos":
What we do know is that Nakaba made the decision to bring back both the Coffin as a whole as well as the dragon handle on its own in the sequel, which suggests that their role in the story may not be over yet. The handle is particularly notable given how there was that one instance in which a ghostly dragon appeared to manifest from within the handle:
Another dragon-related detail that stands out is the Dragon Back-Bone "mountain" that Sin teleported Percival and Donny to while escaping from Pellegarde:
As a side note, an alternative interpretation of this Dragon of Chaos is that it actually represents Arthur, whose surname is of course Pendragon. In this case said dragon would be more of a benevolent figure rather than a stand-in for Satan, but I personally find this option unlikely given that the dragon handle has never been implied to have anything to do with Arthur. It's also possible that Nakaba could be setting up a battle of two distinct dragons, as an allusion to the tale of the dueling dragons told in Historia Britonum that helped popularize the stories of King Arthur: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinas_Emrys#Literary_tradition
3.2 The two other beasts
Beyond the Dragon or Satan who is the most important of the three we have the beast of the sea, interpreted to represent the Antichrist, and the beast of the earth, identified as the false prophet. I previously described Cath as Nakaba's take on the Antichrist but mentioned that there is another option as well, that being the false prophet. I say this primarily because the Antichrist is a more important figure than the false prophet, so it would perhaps make more sense to place Cath in the latter role if other villains are going to take his place soon. It helps that Cath luring people to his fake version of Camelot through deceitful promises would make him an appropriate parallel to the false prophet as well with how he's essentially trying to lead people away from the real Arthur.
If we take Cath as the false prophet then in that case the role of the Antichrist would have to be played by someone else, with Morgan le Fay being perhaps the most likely candidate. In the legends she is closely related to Arthur so it wouldn't be that difficult to portray her in such a way that she could be considered Arthur's antithesis. Another option would be the depict her as the Whore of Babylon(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whore_of_Babylon) given that the latter is a prominent and explicitly female figure present during the apocalypse, unlike the beasts. The figure is described to be carrying a golden cup, which would connect nicely to the whole Holy Grail business if she ends up stealing it or something along those lines. I mention this because the mention of the cup is a basic enough element that Nakaba would have realistically come across it while reading through the Book of Revelation as part of planning the manga, and it's something that would definitely stand out when you're already in the mindset of writing an Arthurian story featuring the Grail. I'm not sure who the Antichrist would be in this case though. I guess Mordred would pretty much be the only option, unless the Lady of the Lake's aquatic monster body is meant to be a very literal depiction of a beast from the sea.
The last topic I want to address is that while the beast of the sea and the beast of the earth appear in the New Testament, the Old Testament also features a giant sea monster in the form of Leviathan as well as a giant land monster in the form of Behemoth. These entities are unrelated outside of sharing similar themes, but it's possible that Nakaba could choose to meld them together in a more direct way, even if I'd personally prefer to keep them separate. In the Bible the latter duo are a pair of monsters that embody chaos, so it's not surprising that one of them was already included in this series. Behemoth was ultimately pacified and put to sleep by Percival, but that's not a permanent solution to the threat it poses so it will presumably have to be put down for good sooner or later. That could happen imminently or it could be postponed all the way until the apocalypse, which I expect to be featured in the final arc of the series.
4. Conclusion
In summary, I think the blatant Biblical connections between Arthur and Christ are quite fitting and I believe they extend to other major characters like Cath as well. Contrary to some theories I've seen I doubt Chaos is going to become a villain given its parallels to God in terms of loving its creations and leaving their salvation in the hands of his chosen messiah. Instead I expect future enemies to be comprised of figures related to the Biblical apocalypse, primarily the beasts. It's possible that Nakaba could choose to mirror NnT's structure where Hendrickson gave way to the TC who were ultimately replaced by the DK with a similar relay format where the role of the main villain passes from beast to beast, starting with Cath(the beast of the earth) and then the beast of the sea before eventually culminating in either an allusion to or a direct depiction of Satan(the dragon). If the dragon is essentially like the DK then the beast of the sea would be the Zeldris who's in charge of the dragon's elite henchmen. Morgan would be a good fit for that position, but we'll see how things go. I might add to this post/thread in the future if something new comes up. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
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