Downstairs, the Black Wolf Demon Hunter, having discovered the enemy's intentions, immediately untied the crossbow from his back and, through the wall severed by a knight's sword, aimed it outside at the four leading official knights and an attendant knight for continuous shooting.
The leader of the official knights, Manuel of Wild Boar, grabbed the incoming short arrow with his left hand.
The kinematic visual abilities of the official knights are terrifyingly strong, their superhuman stature allowing them to catch arrows barehanded.
"Isn't this from the Marquis of Clocks? A five-shot crossbow like this is worth two standard knight swords."
"Good, I didn't expect such a surprise. Mine now."
He sneered at the archer, then suddenly noticed that the man was dressed as a Demon Hunter, only then did he realize the weight of the short arrow was off.
"This is..."
"A magic potion trap from the Griffin School... how is this possible..."
"No ordinary Demon Hunter could pull this off. Quick, drop the short arrows in your hands!"
But it was too late.
The superior dynamic visual abilities and reflexes of the knights led them all to catch the short arrows aimed at their faces.
Attached to the tail end of each short arrow was a magic potion bottle no bigger than a fingernail.
Then they exploded.
This kind of magic potion bottle, a combination of chemical and magic techniques, when detonated, produces a shockwave covering an area of 10 square meters.
The four official knights and seventeen knight apprentices of the Wild Boar Knights Group, due to their tactical formation and the destruction of the bearing wall of the post house causing them to stay too close to each other, were all overturned from their horses when the five shockwave bottles exploded.
The headless body of the Old Witch walked down the stairs. She didn't have a head so she couldn't see anything.
However, her head was at the window on the fourth floor where it had a view of the scene below, so her body naturally reacted to it.
She saw the panicked patrons in the inn, the hunched old man and the innkeeper, Rayli, cowering in the corner.
She also saw the Wild Boar Knights Group. She traced lines of words in the air with her finger, these words creating sound by vibrating their surroundings.
"A magic potion trap from the Griffin School..."
"How many of the nine trials of the Demon Hunter have you passed?"
"It's not like you to be following a declining noble, you're also not being honest, huh."
"We should form an alliance, it's the wish of His Majesty. It wouldn't be good if these knights anger His Majesty."
"The wrath of His Majesty is far more frightening than these knights."
Manuel of the Wild Boar Knights Group crawled up from the ground, he pulled down the face shield of his helmet, revealing a face twisted in anger. "An alliance between a Demon Hunter and a witch, huh."
"I've always known that Demon Hunters are no good."
"Everyone, ignore these two."
"The witch's head is not here, she must have hidden her heart too. Killing a body here means nothing, she can always find another."
"Her head must be upstairs."
"Change of plans, stop wrecking the building, cover me, I'm going to go upstairs and kill the defenseless witch's head."
The Black Wolf and the Witch were simultaneously taken aback.
Because Ivita was performing a ritual upstairs.
They absolutely cannot let them go up there!
Manuel of the Wild Boar mounted his steed and with a whistle, twenty war horses charged into the inn.
At the same time, the knights and attendants threw away their excessively long knight swords, substituting them with short swords, trailing behind the herd of horses.
This strategy, of horsemen as the vanguard followed by warriors, came directly from the battlefield.
This is a real battlefield tactic!
The Demon Hunter Black Wolf drew his great sword. With one sweep of his blade, he beheaded three horses charging towards him.
The horse heads fell to the ground like sacks, splashing blood all around.
Black Wolf was puzzled, "These are superior war horses bred from common horses and magical beasts, why are they being sent to their deaths?"
The Old Witch's remaining left hand was gesturing, and although her head was chanting spells from the fourth floor window, her headless body was the one executing the magic.
She suddenly traced words in the air with her left hand, which caused the air to vibrate and produce sound.
"This is the Emperor Charlemagne's military formation, specifically designed to deal with loose troops. Damn, it is tactical, watch your left front."
But the Witch's warning was too late.
One Knight Attendant suddenly sprung out from under a warhorse and drove a sword into the thigh of Black Wolf.
Then, another Knight Attendant popped out from beside the horse, jabbing his sword into Black Wolf's left arm.
Black Wolf was an experienced Demon Hunter, but he had never experienced battle on a battlefield before.
However, the members of the Wild Boar Knights Group were entirely different from him.
They were experienced in battling heretics, cultists, merchants and various enemy groups.
The art of war was something a single individual could never compare to.
In pain, Black Wolf managed to block a few stabs aimed at his vital wounds with a greatsword.
However, his body was already littered with injuries.
With her left hand, the witch quickly scribbled some words. "Luckily they didn't bring crossbows. The Emperor Charlemagne's formation consists of vanguard horsemen, warriors in the middle, while some fire arrows from the back."
"In an era centuries ago, Emperor Charlemagne used this method to kill many professionals."
"But the Church strictly forbids using bows and crossbows in the Dark Magic Forest, it can only be used when fighting heretics."
"The Wild Boar Knights Group takes money from the Church, so it's unlikely they would openly disobey their commands."
"And now my spell is ready."
The Old Witch suddenly stretched her left hand upright, raising it high above and spreading her fingers apart.
A cloud gathered inside the room, appearing above her palm.
She waved her hand, and thousands of seeds fell on the stairs, wooden floor, between the bars, beside the hiding customers, as well as amongst the horses and knights.
The cloud also followed, and astonishingly, rain started falling inside the room.
This was The Great Witch's iconic spell - The Carnivorous Flower Secret Garden.
With the falling of the grey rain, sprouts began to emerge from the wooden floor.
These seeds took root, germinated quickly, and in a short amount of time, evolved into flora taller than a grown man - the carnivorous flower.
The top of these flowers sparkled with a strange purple hue, as if covered in a beautiful mist, and their mouths were full of shark-like inverted fangs.
Within moments, the first floor of the inn had become a carnivorous flower garden.
These hundreds of carnivorous flowers swallowed the precious warhorses in one bite and began attacking the knights.
"Our horses have been eaten by the carnivorous flowers! Those horses... they were valuable!"
"Crap, these carnivorous flowers are attacking us too. Pay attention to defense, do not break formation! No matter how expensive the horses are, they're not worth more than our lives!"
"Defense! Defense! Defense! Do not break formation!"
"Someone got swallowed! There is no way to save them now. What on earth are these things? I'd rather fight official knights than witches!! I don't want to become flower fertilizer."
The carnivorous flowers lunged towards the knights, but their discipline remained unbroken. While frantically retreating, they only sustained minor injuries somehow.
Only five attendants, who were unable to rejoin the formation in time, were swallowed by the carnivorous flowers.
Their sharp teeth, growing backwards like millstones, ground his body into pieces.
These Knight Attendants only had the Seed of Life within them, they didn't possess the Extraordinary Organs. Their overall defense wasn't much stronger than that of ordinary people.
Which is why they needed armor.
Unfortunately, these Knight Attendants didn't have the money to buy chain mail or plate armor. They merely wore a helmet and a padded armor filled with cotton and patches.
All were cheap articles, inferior to the full-body armor of the official knights.
Being swallowed by the carnivorous flowers at this moment, and without decent protection, their fate didn't look very promising.
After all, this was the magic of The Great Witch.