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I do not kill. My blade does not find a neck to cut. My hands do not rip open the bodies of my foes, tearing out their hearts. No man has been put into his grave by my actions. Against a thousand foes I have fought with vigour and great victory on my side, and I have felled none of them. I have not placed any skulls into piles as a mark of my conquest. And yet, I am feared. Foes flee me, dread my coming, and many would rather surrender rather than facing me in combat. When their eyes behold my dull grey armour, when they see my long thin blade, they pray to feeble gods for salvation. Strange, isn't it? I do not come to kill them. I have never slain anyone. Yet still, I am the dread champion of the Dark Lord. I am his herald, his dark hand reaching out into the world to crush the throats of his enemies.

How can this be? When I have never slain a single man? When no hero has been skewered upon my sword? When surely, bloodthirsty berserkers, killers with hundreds of souls sinfully taken abruptly to their bloody names, and mad mages who kill without thinking, would be more suitable for that role. Indeed, the witch that cursed me thought that I would be left incapable of fulfilling my purpose. That since I cannot stab fatally, cannot rip and tear with abandon, find it physically and psychologically impossible to strike the final fatal blow, I would be destroyed. That I, a dark monstrous Minotaur knight, bred from a cursed line of mortals and monsters, would not be able to be the right-hand man of the half-demonic Dark Lord, who is destined to crush the world underneath his black iron boots. I taught her otherwise. Death I cannot grant. But there are fates that are worse than death. Fates that makes death seem like a blessing, a kindness, the ultimate mercy. The witch who cursed me will never die. But she wishes, deep within the enchanted magical cube in which I placed her, that she could. She can feel nothing in there; but hunger. She can see nothing, but empty night. She can drink nothing, but cold void. For a thousand years.

Her supreme arrogance, in not simply killing me when she had me on the ropes, has proven to be her undoing. Such is the path of many of my foes. So many who fight against my Lord, find me and my inability to kill them, to be their ultimate undoing.

The Highlord Paladin who led the greatest counterattack against my Dark Lord, who in his arrogance came to strike down my beloved Lord in a final attack, paid for his mistake when I carefully broke him. Wrestled him away from my Lord just before he could strike him down for good. I took that man to the depths of the pit-realm. To the black seas beneath the world. Where there is only blind fish, cold waters, and ancient dread monsters that roam the forgotten world. There, I carefully chipped away at him, imprisoning him within an enchanted cage. Siphoning away the divine powers of this most holy paladin; and channeling them into a weapon that can break the most powerfully enchanted walls. He pays for the arrogance of harming my beloved Dark Lord, the arrogance of attempting to murder the rightful ruler of reality, by being a living battery for our sieges. The spells on the cage keeps him fed, keeps him alive, keeps him tethered to the divine power of our godly enemies, so that we can siphon and abuse the powers of the weak gods that oppose my master.

That is only fair. Oh the days when I stood by my wounded lord, guarded his sickbed from would-be usurpers or opportunistic heroes. Fed him carefully, his severely wounded flesh slowly mended by my tender care. I am loyal. I was made to be loyal. Such dreadful days, yet still the iron in his voice as he gave commands was striking. By following them, by doing as he wanted, I proved well to him that his trust in me, despite my inability to slaughter his enemies, was well-founded. Still, even near death, incapable of even being healed by magic as it might grow his body back wrong, he was indomitable. That such a Paladin dares to do that to my Lord, it makes me want to ask the Dark Lord to tear apart my soul and bind it completely and fully to his will so that I can kill for him. Part of me desires this. Desires that I can kill for him. Desires to throw away my free will utterly, make myself little more than a devoted flesh golem designed to protect him. But alas, I cannot serve my function as his bloody right hand without a will of my own. So I do the best I can with what I've got.

And so far, he has not complained.

I break their legs. I tear the flesh. I wrestle and I strike. But I cannot give that last attack. Cannot give that final death. Indeed, the curse even compels me to save the lives of my foes; which given how weakened they are, how close I've brought them to death, means that once they're no longer in danger of dying, they've already been captured, and will be shown the full hospitality of my Lord. Some are taken by the warlocks, and taken to have their brains rebuilt through spellwork to serve the great Dark Lord. Some, the important ones, are taken by me to be interrogated, something which due to knowing exactly when I can stop before killing them, I've become exceptionally good at. And a few, are asked after by the Dark Lord himself, who corrupts them with sheer force of will. It is a marvel to behold that, when an enemy I've defeated is taken to the throne chamber. When the Dark Lord thanks me for doing my job so very well; that is bliss. Seeing his black-void eyes staring into the souls of our most powerful enemies, breaking them on every level, turning the most stalwart heroes and doers of good deeds, into loyal servants of the Iron Crown of the Dark Lord.

He then gives unto me the charge to use them well; and by the old gods do I ever find great use for them. I cannot kill directly. Always, my Lord smiles warmly as he compliments me on what I do with them. Having defeated the great heroes in combat, I know exactly how to best use them in the Dark Legions. How to send the warriors back to their homelands to lead the conquering armies. How to use the sorcerers to turn their old friends and colleagues into ash. How to turn the sneaks and rogues into our most useful assassins. Sure, sometimes I have to break them further, after all they've still got their morals, even if they have been turned to the side of the Dark Lord, but knowing the exact limit of pain I can drive them to before they die, is an excellent way to force these former heroes to become truly determined to serve the cause of the Dark Lord. Almost as much as I am devoted to him and his cause.

Though I doubt anyone else can ever be that devoted. That loyal.

/r/ApocalypseOwl

"I am alive?" he asked her, his eyes fluttering.

"It seems so," she said, old anger plain on her face.

He remembered the arc of the grenade, the shock of it, the tearing pain as his arms and legs accelerated faster than his torso could keep them attached. He remembered her standing over him. He remembered her spit in his eye.

"You killed me," he said.

"No, but I'm told you'll probably wish I did." she said. He turned his head (how could he do that, he wondered?) and he saw they were sitting in the clearing outside his cave. The mountains rose around him, familiar and unhelpful. They'd found him, somehow, and they'd sent...her? She didn't look like any Special Forces soldier he'd ever seen.

She sat on the ground next to him, arms wrapped around her legs, staring off into the dusk. The sun had faded from orange to red, and its light barely caught on the bars of his cages. She'd freed his captives; he wondered where she'd taken them.

"So what now?" he asked her. "You take me back to your masters, your fascist, monopolist, lying scum, and they put me in a box forever?"

She looked at him for the first time since his awakening. "Yes," she said, simply, and went back to staring into the woods.

"So why you, then? Why not some trained killers, or a strike of your unholy drones?"

"Because I can't kill," she said, monotone. "They wanted you alive, and no matter what I did, I couldn't kill you."

"How can this be?" he asked.

"No one knows," she said. "One day, after he'd tortured me, I tried to kill my torturer. And I saw something, something beautiful, and it said I shouldn't be allowed to screw up my afterlife by murdering people. So...now I can't."

He gaped. "Your place in Paradise was saved for you by an angel?"

Her grim silence did not dispute him. It also did not hold a single measure of peace.

"It seems so."

"And yet you spurn your blessing," he spat angrily. "Typical."

"Fuck you," she said absently.

"Accept your gift, you idiot woman," he tried to shout, but it came out as a cough. "You cannot stain your soul with a death."

"No," she replied, "but I can keep trying."

[EDIT: cleanup]

The things I have done, the things I have seen. More horrible than anything the feeble brain can ever comprehend. I may never kill, but I can do worse. Death is sudden, fear is immortal, agony is endless, never stopping, only growing. A bullet might kill, but cover them in cuts and drown them in lemon juice and they will wish for the day that death will take them. I was cursed to never kill a living soul, but killing the mind does is more effective than killing the body ever could be. Last week I dragged someone into my lair, did you know an average human can survive up to a month or two without food? Awesome! I beg for the day that death will take me, and so do they. When you sign a contract for immortality, make sure it wasn't signed by the devil. Everyday I must carry out the dirty deeds, my torture will last longer than theirs, at least they can die someday. I'm here for eternity.

Good lord. No wonder they say "there are fates worse than death."

Nice job, as always.

Was reading it and I was getting a familiar vibe, ofc it's old AO with another masterpiece, well done