journey of fifth true dragon

Part 4 : founding festival arc

PROLOGUE

In a barren land , a massive castle stood tall.  The surroundings give an ominous aura . Corpses of humans are lying across the land and monsters are feeding on it.  Every structures apart from the castle is completely ruined . There is no sigh of any intelligent lifeforms apart from the freely roaming monsters . Very cold breezes are flowing in the dark barren land . In such harsh environment , a being with pair of dark horns and black hairs walk towards the castle without any worries . Monsters seem to be fleeing from his imposing aura . He entered the castle and walk past hallway.  He opens a massive door and goes inside the room. 

In the throne room , 20 guards split into two rows and await by the two sides of the door . They have a creepy visage, with a skull mask and black robe . The face under the skull mask has been scraped off leaving them faceless . Each individual possess combat abilities comparable to an average demon lord seeds.  They are all equipped with high quality magical items . But, they are not even allowed to move a muscle.  This is due to the figure who sat on the center of the room in throne covered in shadows.  The imposing aura realised by the figure is powerful enough to kill a greater majin on the spot.  Figure is enjoying some drinks serve happily by the butler besides him . The whole room is in complete silence as the figure enjoys the drink .

Finally the silence is broken b someone's arrival.  The intruder proceed to kneel before the figure. 
" Master , I have returned !"

" Oh , you finally came back Zero ! Did you accomplished the task given to you ?" Figure asks in very low voice but it was enough to be heard in the entire room because of silence. 

" Yes , master. Granbell rosso accepted our help , at first he was little sceptical but in order to achieve victory against demon lord rimuru , he agreed . Not that he had any chose as he had already lost his support from Western saints church . "

" Good . Did you complete the other task , I gave you earlier ? "

" Yeah it also successfully done . During tempest battle with clayman's forces , I infiltrated clayman's forces as a merchenaries and came into contact with one of the generals of tempest ,gobta leader of goblin riders and replaced him with an identical clone of his. It would have been difficult to do in presence of a primordial but the device given to me by you made it easy . I have also prepared a souvenir for you, master ."
Zero take out a unconscious body from empty space and placed it near the bottom step of the staircase .

The captive opens his eyes .

" Where am I ? "He look around his surrounding and started panicking .
What is this place ? Those mask people , what are they ? Between benimaru sama and any one of them , I can't tell who would win ? They are bad new ! His eyes went towards Zero . What the hell is he ? He is on completely different level than other guards . He seems more powerful than even shizue sama.  What should I do ? How can I escape from here . Even if I summon ranga San , he wouldn't be able to fight these monsters . I should first try to escape from here and communicate with rimuru sama . Only he can save me in this situation .

" Don't try anything funny ! It's no use , you can't escape from this palace nor can you communicate with anyone . Just follow our orders , you may survive . " Zero caught gobta who was trying to escape by using shadow steps. 
He is fast .
" Master, this here is a small gift from Cardinal world . He may look weak but I think he can be a useful soldier in our mission . And here is the sample from jura forest . " Butler beside the master came downstairs and collected the sample and drag gobta by his collar. 

" Stop ! What are you doing ? Leave me? Aahh...." Gobta tries to get away from the Butler's clutches .

" You can't be that cruel to poor boy .!"master says in teasing gobta .
Master gets up from the throne and get close to gobta who was lying on the floor. 
This is bad ? This guy is bad new ! I can't see it's face . What is this? It's aura is more imposing than veldora or milim sama . Gobta shivers in master's presence .