Holy Knights are clearly the villains of the arc.
They are basically underestimating the forces on Elbaf and toying with them, giving them time to save the Children before they get to the ships. These dumb mofos didn't even properly estimate the fighting force on Elbaf before doing this shit and only reason why they haven't already gotten smoked is coz Luffy's dumbass decided to go let Loki lose on a whim.
Kiba's already sounded the alarm so the whole force of the giants are going to be moving to save the Children whilst the Nightmares and the Holy Knights hinder them from doing so.
We already have Oda's typical "time bomb" setting in place with this sleep walking ting. Not to mention Gunko quite literally says Nika is what she fears the most so narratively speaking Oda's gonna have Gunko and the Holy Knights experience their greatest fears with Nika glaze
Like I already I've already said in the matchup predictions for Elbaf, Holy Knights are most likely gonna get smoked, and then Gunko somehow escapes back to Marijoea to bring back Shamrock and potentially Garling.