Four Pieces on a Formal Wizard's Chessboard

On the snowy mountains.

Banville's team flew through the high skies.

Anna said excitedly, "Wizard Banville, this is the second-to-last noble. Once we kill him, there will be only one noble left on our Death List.

"Victory is right ahead of us. Everyone, keep it up."

But Banville shook his head. "There's no need to say that... because he's already dead."

1

As soon as Banville finished speaking.

A paper bird carrying a human head in its beak flew before Banville and the others.

The head was strange. Though separated from its body, it seemed to still retain life.

Terror covered its face as it cried, "Lord Wizards, please, don't kill me!"

Banville cast it a cold glance before casting a spell.

An eerie light emerged.

Flames began to blaze fiercely over the head.

"Don't kill me!"

The head wailed and begged for help.

"Great Lord Wizards, I swear I'll never again do anything that goes against you!"

The glory he had accumulated as a noble would vanish into nothing beneath those flames.

"Wizards, you deserve to die! Without you, we nobles could have lived comfortably! Why are you stripping us of our right to enjoy noble privileges?!"

When he realized that his pleas could not save him, the noble became hysterical.

As the head burned into ashes.

A number appeared on Banville and the others.

It represented that they had killed another noble.

Anna and the others looked at Banville with reverence.

Banville's uncanny Burning Spell, along with the spell that kept a body and head alive even after being separated.

Both filled them with a sense of the unknown and dread.

Banville turned back to see Anna and the others' fear and worship, but he felt neither joy nor sorrow.

He was different from these people.

He had