After incapacitating all the horseless horsemen and letting the pitiful one that was treated unfairly go away safely after only a poke to his thigh, Matthew put down the sword that he attached to his tongue and grabbed it with his right hand before stabbing it down to the ground.
'Well, that should be enough warning to prevent them from creating any ruckus or trying anything stupid like running away while I spend my time thinking about how can I kill that cowardly commander.'
Matthew was quite sure earlier that he could easily break apart the encirclement that protected the commander standing in the middle of it, but now that he actually thinks about it, it really is easy to break the circle formation, but ensuring that the commander wouldn't be able to run away is another matter.
Seeing that the cowardly commander really valued his life above all else, Matthew is at least 90% sure that he will run away the moment Matthew tries to break apart the encirclement.
If his objective was only to make the humans scramble away back to their camp, Matthew could very easily do that by just randomly attacking the horses.
And since he was invisible, none of the humans could do anything besides relying on their luck and hope that Matthew would somehow trip and go headfirst into their swords. But with Matthew's wariness and his reflex that had been improved after living in the forest and fighting every day to fill his belly and keep on evolving, such an unfortunate incident is unlikely to happen.
Matthew has no problem letting the remaining 40-ish horsemen go, but the commander has to pay the price for killing many of the kobolds, including the first kobold kid's and the twins' parents. Matthew won't let such people just go away without paying the price of their actions.
And since he also had promised to the kobolds to help them, Matthew felt somewhat responsible for easing their hearts a little by not letting the humans off by only the deaths of a few foot-soldiers.
And now thinking back on how to deal with the issue of killing the commander, Matthew tried to search for other ways as his direct ways are not suitable for the goal that he wants to achieve.
Matthew then looked at his surroundings to see if there's anything that he could use. He noticed there's a lot of swords on the ground and he thought,
'Can I assassinate the commander by throwing swords at him?'
Matthew had tried to make other objects other than his own body disappear and he had once succeeded in making a whole snake's body disappear.
If he used the same technique to make a sword disappear before throwing it directly towards the human commander's head, then Matthew will probably make the humans unable to react properly because of the speed that the sword will be flying in after being whipped by Matthew's tongue will be anything but slow.
And the fact that they will only see the sword after it was released from Matthew's tongue, the humans won't even see the sword until it was already flying straight into their commander's face.
Seeing their reaction before where they were startled and frozen in place when they saw a sword flying on its own, Matthew was quite confident that they also won't be able to give a proper reaction when they saw another flying sword appear out of nowhere.
Matthew was starting to consider the strategy until he realized that he didn't have any experience using his tongue to propel projectiles, especially if the projectiles were swords that are even longer than his own arms.
And if Matthew missed his throw, then the commander will just decide to run away without a second thought after seeing an attempt at taking his life.
'What should I do, what should I do… This commander is really troublesome and annoying from the very start… Can't you just fall from your horse, hit your head, and die already! You're wasting both my time and straining my small chameleon brain to think creatively way too early in the morning!'
With Matthew terrorizing the group earlier, Matthew now has some time to think, but he knows that it's still not a lot of time. This means that although Matthew didn't have a clear deadline, he has to think up something soon before the humans can't handle the pressure anymore and decide to just ignore the unknown danger and just brace themselves before running as fast as they could back to their camp.
'Come on Matthew, think Matthew, think!!'
Matthew looked around him, besides the swords on the ground, he also saw the kobolds in the kobold village standing still without moving a single step outside of their village. He then turned his head to another direction and saw the woods where the humans came from and near it were the horsemen encirclement which is only about 10 meters away from the woods.
'They're dangerously too close to the woods and it will only take them a few seconds to flee and get inside the woods.'
'But wait, if they really decide to run into the woods, I can just chase them. There's no way those horses would outrun me in those uneven ground and zigzagging paths.'
Matthew then started to think of ways about how to lead the humans to run towards the woods,
'Should I make another flying sword and slowly herd them towards the forest?'
'Hmm…'
'Since they're only 10 meters away then the room of error is not that bad and I can just pressure them closely to prevent them from going the other way then after that I could….'
'But they're humans and not sheeps, it will be very risky and there are too many unexpected variables in using that method to lead them away like that. If their human brains are working properly and not just for decoration, some of them will at least realize something is wrong...'
'Wait…'
'Only about 10 meters away…'
Suddenly an idea popped up in Matthew's head and he hurriedly started running towards the woods himself and very carefully watched his steps as he didn't want any humans to know his current position.
The young lieutenant couldn't even process what had happened in front of his very eyes, but one thing that he realizes for sure is that his life is currently in danger.
Earlier, when he was just about to command the army to charge forward, he suddenly heard the scream of one of his soldiers. The scream is as real as it could be as he could feel the intense pain the soldier felt through the soldier's excruciating scream.
He was only about 15 meters away from the soldiers of the main army in the middle of the formation, but he was even speechless and can't help but unconsciously backing up on his horse as he saw the scream didn't stop at the first soldier as it spread around the soldiers as more and more screams painted with pain could be heard permeating from the main army.
Although the young lieutenant was shocked and scared speechless at that time, he was still able to think properly and prioritizes his safety by ordering the horsemen who were outside the middle formation to break up the formation and circled around him instead.
An encirclement of about 50 men might not look much when only said, but when the 50 horsemen really gather around him, even the lieutenant feels somewhat safe even though there's currently an unknown entity attacking his main army.
But soon, the facade of safety in his eyes fades away as this time, he saw a sword was flying on its own and moved freely in the air, twisting and turning as if it had its own mind.
He was only shocked at first and only looked at the sword with confusion and slight awe in his mind as this was the first time he had seen anything like that before.
But his emotions soon turned from confusion to fear and awe into dread as he saw the flying sword cut down even more of his soldiers and it didn't even take a minute that the horsemen that were supposedly stronger than the main army couldn't do any better against the unknown attacker.
The lieutenant then began to panic as he now realized that the remaining 40-ish horsemen were useless against the unknown attacker.
But although the lieutenant is arrogant and cared about his life the most, he still is a lieutenant and he had attended military school back at his kingdom. Hence why in the middle of his panic, he remembered that he needed to stay calm and assess the situation around him and think of the best course of action to ensure that they…he would be able to save his life.
The lieutenant then took huge breaths as he regained his calm and focus and looked at the situation around him.
'Even if the worst is about to happen and we still couldn't do anything about the unknown attacker, the layers of meatshields around me can notify me about the attacker's whereabouts and they could hold out the attacker for a few seconds and that should be enough for me to run the other way around and retreat back to camp.'
'This situation was unprecedented before and that means that even if I lost a lot of soldiers and failed the mission, I won't get any heavy punishments. All I need to do is get back to camp safely and this horror won't be my problem anymore.'
But his thought process was suddenly interrupted as he heard sounds coming from the woods near him. He then put all of his attention towards the woods as he tried to discern what exactly the sound he was hearing.
The sound then gradually becomes clearer as he hears thumps from the tree branches and as the voice becomes louder, he could even see the tree branch near him going down slightly as if something was jumping on it with a great force and cause the loud thumping noise.
The lieutenant was still trying to figure out what happened to the tree branches, but in the next moment, something unexpected happened.
The lieutenant suddenly felt something coiled around his neck causing him to startle and drop the sword on his hands. But before he was able to do anything else, he felt an overpowering force strangling his neck and his airway was completely blocked, but that wasn't the worst as he also felt that his neck might break any second from the force.
The lieutenant then tried to pull away whatever the thing is on his neck as hard as he could, but it won't even budge even with his strength that is even stronger than the horsemen. The more he struggled the tighter the strangling force was and he started to feel that the bones in his neck started to bend in an unusual way and the joints were barely holding on to each other.
But before he was able to think of any solutions, he noticed that one of the arrows from the quivers attached to the saddle of his horse was moving on its own.
He saw the arrow come out of the quiver on its own, hovered in the air for about a second, and in the next moment, the arrow's sharp tip was pointing at the lieutenant's face.
The lieutenant blinked and he started to feel death is literally right in front of his face.
The young lieutenant tried to retaliate, but alas, the tip of the pointy arrow was the last thing that he saw in front of his eyes before he felt an acute pain right in the middle of his eyebrows and soon his world turned black.