Seeing Matthew rejecting his final proposal, the general brought out a palm-sized wooden ball from one of the pouches hanging on his waist. With his sharp eyesight, Matthew was able to see that the small wooden ball is filled with engravings and symbols all over its surface. And somehow some of them looked familiar for Matthew.
'Where did I see something like that before?'
Matthew then saw the general holding the ball right in front of his mouth before saying something.
Although the distance between Matthew and the general is not that close and the general is almost half-whispering his words, Matthew could hear it clearly with his wolf ears.
"By the power of the ancient words, I invoke the elements to heed my call and realize my words."
After Matthew heard the general say those chant-like words. Matthew finally remembered where he had seen some of the weird symbols carved on the wooden ball.
'It was from Mutt's magic staff! It was a magic tool!?'
And right after Matthew guessed what the general was holding in his hand, the carvings on the wooden ball's surface started to emit a white glow starting from the middle section of the symbols.
Several seconds went by before all the carvings were lit up and the white glow covered the whole surface of the wooden ball. From that moment, the light became more and more intense as it almost blind Matthew's eyes.
But before Matthew couldn't handle the intense light, the general threw the wooden ball high up in the air, way above the trees. The intense light grew brighter as it climbed up the sky and it reached its climax as the ball reached the highest point and exploded, emitting a blinding light to the surroundings as if it was creating another sun.
Matthew prepared himself to take cover or even run away if the wooden ball turns out to be some kind of offensive magic spell-like a magic bomb or something like that. And he could only guess what it was since it was his first time seeing a human uses magic.
Fortunately, it wasn't anything like that as the wooden ball completely disappeared after it exploded into light and nothing else had happened after that.
But Matthew, who had been played by the general from the start, didn't believe that the general would suddenly throw an extremely bright ball of light that was even noticeable in the middle of the day.
'And why did he throw it up? Wouldn't it be better to throw it right in front of my face if he wanted to blind me?'
"What are you trying to do?" Matthew asked the general.
While still looking at Matthew with a calm smile on his face, the general replied to Matthew's shout,
"Why don't you see it for yourself later? That is if you are still alive."
The general then holds out his sword with his body facing Matthew. Matthew was preparing himself to counter whatever the general was trying to do, but the general didn't run straight at him or charge right away. Matthew saw the hazy white glow that he saw earlier covering the general's leg before he kicked Matthew appeared again and this time, it covered both of the general's legs.
Having felt the power of the general's aura firsthand earlier and with some of his ribs still broken right now, Matthew knew that whatever is coming to him, he won't be able to get out of it with only light injuries if he doesn't do anything about it.
'What should I do, what should I do…'
Matthew turned his brain trying to think of ways to deal with the general's upcoming attack.
'My invisibility doesn't work and supposed the aura also enhanced his speed, I wouldn't be able to outrun him. And with his enhanced power, I could possibly be knocked out with one well-timed hit to my chest or my head…'
'Come on Matthew, how can you match his power and speed… wait… god damn*t you foolish b*st*rd, you also had those abilities!'
Either his guardian angel worked really hard for him or his luck is fortunately good today. At the last second before the general charged forward with his aura-enhanced legs, Matthew's mind became slightly clearer and he was able to remember that he had the wolf's aura ability.
Matthew quickly turned off the chameleon's aura ability and redirected his aura towards his wolf head to activate his wolf's aura ability.
Thanking himself that didn't slack off when training his wolf aura ability activation, Matthew was able to activate his wolf's aura ability just at the right time to quickly dash sideways to evade the general's charge.
Matthew felt lucky that he trusted his instincts to dodge the general's charge instead of blocking it as he saw that the general charged forward with his sword in a thrusting position.
With the general's enhanced speed and explosive power on his legs, he moved with double his initial speed. And if Matthew had decided to block the attack, the general's sword that was filled with an even more incredible momentum would be able to pierce through his crocodile scutes even deeper than before, and blood would certainly gush out of Matthew's body if that really happened.
Fortunately, with Matthew's wolf's aura ability also enhancing his body's power and agility, Matthew was able to keep up with the general's attack.
The general who saw a similar hazy white glow also appeared covering Matthew's whole body along with the sudden increase in Matthew's speed, looked at Matthew with a slightly surprised gaze just for a moment before he pivoted his body towards Matthew and did another charge.
Matthew thanked his wolf's aura ability that also enhanced his senses that he was able to follow the general's sudden charge towards him.
He saw that the general didn't repeat the same thrusting motion and decided to deliver an overhead slash towards Matthew. Matthew then prepared himself to properly react to the general's attack
Matthew followed the general's movement closely and when he was only a feet away from him, Matthew narrowly dodged the general's slash that aimed at his head by tilting his whole body sideways before thrusting his own claws towards the general's chest.
Matthew still remembers the last time he tried to do that and failed because the general's full armor deflected his claws, but now that he had his wolf aura ability doubling his power, speed, and the toughness and sharpness of his claws, Matthew decided to try it again.
And just like Matthew expected, his enhanced claws were able to pierce through the general's full body armor and cut his chest. Although it had cut through the full body armor, Matthew realizes that the armor is still doing his job as he wasn't able to cut deep into the general's body.
But the fact that he could feel the general's warm blood on the base of his claws means that his claws did succeed in finally injuring the general.
'I thought it was obvious at first glance, but now that I confirmed it myself, the general's aura ability is only affecting his legs. His other body parts didn't get the buff… Which means that I can now target other body parts besides his fa-'
Matthew's line of thought was suddenly cut off in the middle as he saw the general ignore the cut on his chest and continue his attack on Matthew by slashing his sword upward right after Matthew dodged his downward slash.
Matthew's eyes froze as he realized that he made another stupid blunder and even when his eyes were able to see the sword coming to slash his chest, his body wasn't able to give a proper reaction and he failed to completely dodge it in time.
Matthew gritted his teeth and prepared for the intense pain in his chest. However, the pain didn't come as the moment the sword touched his aura-enhanced front scales, the sword was deflected away with only leaving a scratch on his supposedly 'soft' scales.
Matthew then quickly jumped back to catch his breath and luckily, the general stopped chasing him as he realized that his sword was suddenly deflected even from a very close range.
"I guess once you start being annoying, you will keep on being annoying."
The commander said before he jumped towards Matthew once again.
Knowing that even his soft scales are now able to deflect the general's attack, Matthew gained a little confidence and didn't back away as he planned to welcome the general's attack with a counterattack.
But at the last moment, he saw that the white aura that was covering the general's legs disappeared and in the next moment, he saw the general's hands and swords were covered by the familiar white aura.
Matthew quickly abandoned his plan to counterattack and put both of his hands to cover his head and block the general's downward slash that was enhanced by aura.
His enhanced scutes and the general's enhanced sword clashed against each other as they produced the similar dull sound that they heard the first time the two of them collided, but this time, the sound was comparably stronger than last time.
But the commander didn't stop there as he continued attacking Matthew with flowing movements as each attack connected with each other beautifully in contrast to Matthew that only used his instincts, heightened senses, and reflex to dodge the general's advanced attacks.
At first, Matthew was still overwhelmed by the general's technique and new cuts started to appear on his body as the general's aura-enhanced sword was able to cut through his enhanced body, but as Matthew realized the advantage that he had, Matthew was able to dodge most of the general's attack whilst creating new cuts on the general's body.
What Matthew had done was that he took advantage of the fact that the general could only use his aura on either his legs or his hands one at a time, he couldn't use both at the same time.
And with that, every time the general used the aura on his hands, Matthew would focus on his footwork and try to dodge the general's attacks by moving his entire body. And when the general used the aura on his legs to catch up to Matthew, Matthew stopped running away and focused on blocking and countering the general's attack.
15 Minutes went by just like that and the two exchanged attacks with each other and the general's full body armor was riddled with holes all over them. Using the same strategy that he used against the bear, other than trying to attack the general's vitals, Matthew also aimed at the general's joints causing the general to pay extra attention to protecting his vitals and added with the 4 joints on his limbs, making the general split his focus onto several things at once and draining his mental strength.
And 15 minutes straight of using aura intensely is not something that the general does every day, hurting his muscles and his flawlessly trained movements started to become slightly duller as time went by.
On the other side, Matthew had been constantly using his aura from the start when he used his chameleon aura ability, but his dependency on using his aura ability to do most of his hunts had in turn benefits him as he was used to the feeling of constantly using aura. And after his third evolution, his aura reserve had expanded significantly and about 30 minutes of constant use is something that was manageable for Matthew.
"If you had used this ability from the start rather than that useless invisibility, then maybe you'll have a chance. But now, you are sadly too late." The general suddenly said.
'Yes, he's right… If I used my head from the start and was not swept up by my emotions then the outcome would be much better than this…But that doesn't mean that I had lost.'
"What do you mean? I can keep on going, I still have plenty of juice left. You better prepare yourself and keep your promise by the time this ends." Matthew said to the general.
But the general didn't say anything back to Matthew and only smirked while looking at him.
Seeing the unusually calm and arrogant expression on the general's face, Matthew was about to ask him what made him so confident, but he stopped his mouth from saying any words as he suddenly saw the first kobold kid and the twins were running towards him while opening their mouths as if they were saying something.
Matthew was able to see their mouths were opening and closing, but somehow, Matthew wasn't able to hear any sound coming out of their mouths. However, he saw that the first kobold kid's hand was pointing in a direction in the forest.
Matthew followed the first kobold kid's hand and he could see thick black smoke rising up towards the sky somewhere in the forest. And from the clearing where he currently is, it was very visible that the smoke is only growing larger and larger.
Looking at the minimap in the corner of his eyes, Matthew only now realizes that the thick black smoke was coming from the direction of the kobold village.
"YOU! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!?" He shouted towards the general.
Matthew didn't even bother to see what kind of expression the general had as he started to focus all his strength on his legs before starting running as fast as he could towards the village.
But just when his body was about to go out of the clearing in the forest, Matthew's body was hit by an invisible wall. Matthew tried, again and again, to go towards the forest, but every time his body was about to leave the clearing, the invisible wall appeared and blocked his way.
"WHAT IS THIS THING!?"
He tried hitting the invisible wall, but after hitting it several times, Matthew found out that the wall didn't budge at all and the only thing that he learned was there exist familiar looking symbols engraved on the ground beneath his feet right at the edge of the clearing and it shone every time he tried going past it.
"I guess now you understand what I mean by you are too late, Matthew?"