Saving The Monster Race Starts With Breeding The Elf Village

Thea’s mouth had fallen open. She stood frozen, her mind struggling to process what her eyes were telling her.

’Sigrid...cut the Hero’s hand in half? In the very first strike?’

Poppy had gone completely pale. She clutched Thea’s mane so tightly that her knuckles had turned white, her emerald eyes fixed on Luca’s mangled hand with a look of absolute horror.

”NO!” She finally managed to shriek, her voice cutting through the noise.

”SIGRID! WHAT DID YOU DO?! I TOLD YOU TO BEAT HIM UP! NOT CUT HIS HAND OFF! SIGRID!”

Sigrid turned slowly, her face pale as milk, her eyes wide with a mixture of shock and horror.

She looked at her sword, still raised, and saw the blood dripping from its edge.

”I—I didn’t—” She stammered, her voice barely a whisper. ”I didn’t mean to—I thought—”

”YOU THOUGHT WHAT?!” Poppy shouted, her voice trembling. ”I...I know you wanted to protect me!”

”I know I told you to beat him up! But slicing his arm in half like a piece of meat?!”

Poppy sobbed, completely unable to look at the gory mess of Luca’s hand.

”That’s too much, Sigrid! Why would you do take it so far?!”

”It’s not my fault!” Sigrid finally found her voice, turning to face her queen with a panicked expression. ”My lady, I swear! I put everything into that strike, but I thought—I thought he would parry it easily! He’s the Hero! How could I possibly—”

”Then how did this happen?!” Poppy demanded, pointing at Luca’s ruined hand.

”I DON’T KNOW!”

Thea finally shook off her shock, her eyes narrowing as she looked at the scene.

”Sigrid.” She said slowly. ”Don’t tell me...Did you regain the ability to hold mana? Is that why your strike was so powerful?”

That was the only logical explanation Thea could conjure.

If Sigrid had somehow unlocked her mana, it might explain how she caught the Hero off guard.

”No! Absolutely not!” Sigrid denied frantically, staring at her own palms. ”I don’t feel a single drop of mana inside me! Even if I tried to force a latent spark, it wouldn’t be enough to scratch a monster like him!”

”I swear, I just swung my sword!”

The vanguard descended into further confusion, panic, and dark, terrifying rumors.

Was the Commander secretly an ungodly monster?

Was the Hero actually a fragile fraud?

Poppy, despite having viewed Luca as her mortal enemy three minutes ago, now looked at his exposed, split arm with profound, sickening pity.

”Oh gods...his insides are hanging out...this is all my fault...” She whimpered, burying her face in Thea’s neck.

And Sigrid? Sigrid felt like her entire world had been turned upside down.

She had spent her whole life upholding the values of knighthood, of honor, of duty.

And now she had done something that went against everything she stood for. She had harmed someone who was clearly not expecting it.

She had taken advantage of a moment of...weakness?

’But why was he weak!?’ Her mind screamed. ’He’s the Hero! He should have been able to block that without even trying!’

—

While the centaurs were in a state of utter pandemonium, Luca himself was...calm.

Remarkably calm.

Despite the excruciating pain of having his forearm sliced cleanly in two, he was not screaming. He was not panicking. He was not even grimacing.

Instead, he was looking at his arm with an expression of pure, unadulterated fascination.

He turned his hand this way and that, watching as his fingers flopped uselessly, the two halves of his arm moving independently of each other.

It was like he had suddenly grown a pair of crab pincers instead of a human hand.

And then...a slow, utterly bizarre smile spread across his face.

To the centaurs, it was the smile of a maniac.

But in Luca’s mind, a puzzle piece had just slammed into place.

’Ah...’ Luca thought, the realization washing over him like cold water. ’So that’s what happened.’

In that moment when Sigrid’s sword had met his, he had felt it.

All the superhuman power that had been his constant companion for millennias had simply...vanished.

Not suppressed. Not held back. Gone.

And what was left was just him. A normal human.

A mortal.

And because he had been holding his sword with a lazy, low-effort grip, a normal human wrist couldn’t possibly absorb a full-force centaur swing.

His sword had been swatted away, and her blade had naturally cleaved straight through his un-buffed, mortal flesh.

’It’s a divine restriction.’ Luca realized, his smile widening slightly as he stared at the sky.

The thing was Luca was so absurdly overpowered that he couldn’t step foot anywhere without being slapped with massive debuffs.

It was the price of peace—a strict treaty hammered out between the Goddesses of the Human continent and the Goddesses backing the Demi-humans.

How severe those debuffs were depended on one thing: karmic accumulation.

For centuries, every race had prayed to the heavens, building up a spiritual bank account of luck and blessings.

But summoning a Hero wasn’t free. It was a high-stakes gamble.

To pull Luca into their world, the races had to sacrifice that accumulated faith—surrendering their future luck, good fortune, and heavenly blessings just to balance the scales.

Some races chickened out and offered a pittance.

Others went all in.

Back in the elf village, Grand Matriarch Elna had gambled everything.

Because she put every drop of her race’s karmic faith on the line, she won total control over Luca’s debuff.

Her dying wish created a rule: Luca couldn’t harm a male elf without Leona’s explicit permission.

That rule had saved Luca from himself—preventing him from instantly killing Julius, which would have kept the parasitic worm hidden and triggered a total catastrophe.

...The centaurs weren’t so lucky.

It wasn’t that the centaur elder held back—she sacrificed everything her people had left.

The problem was that the centaurs were broke.

For generations, their warriors had gone on deadly missions across the continent, constantly praying to the Goddesses just to make it home alive.

Every answered prayer burned through a chunk of their karmic savings.

When it came time for the ritual, they simply didn’t have enough faith in the bank to tip the scales.

Because of that deficit, the Human Goddesses got a 50/50 say in setting Luca’s restrictions in centaur territory. Blending the centaur elder’s wish with the Goddesses interference created a brutal new rule:

The moment Luca enters direct sword combat against a centaur—male or female—he reverts entirely to a normal human.

No superhuman strength. No lightspeed agility.

As long as the fight lasts, he is a fragile mortal.

On paper, it was a terrifying curse. Stripping a legendary entity of his godhood and handing him back to mortal blade-craft meant anyone with a sword had a genuine shot at killing him.

Anyone else in Luca’s shoes would have been paralyzed with fear.

Instead, Luca looked down at his bleeding hand—

—and grinned like a madman.

’I’m bleeding.’ He thought, his heart racing. ’I’m actually...bleeding freely.’

He hadn’t felt this in thousands of years.

Usually, any attempt to suppress his power was just him holding back—a god acting like a human while the divine engine still hummed inside his core.

But right now? The engine was dead. He couldn’t force his regeneration to kick in even if he tried.

For the first time in an eternity, the air felt sharply cool against his skin.

The heat of the sun felt real. The sheer, terrifying weight of mortality pressed against his shoulders.

It was a terrifying, beautiful, intoxicating sensation that brought back a rush of human emotions—fear, adrenaline, vulnerability, and a sense of actually existing in the present moment.

For a brief, dark second, a dangerous thought flickered in his head:

’I could take a blade right now, drive it straight through my neck, and finally end the whole damn ride.’

In his darkest centuries, his own relentless immortality had denied him even the escape of death.

Every time he had wanted to quit, his body simply wouldn’t let him die.

Now, for the first time in an eternity, death was actually an option.

But then he chuckled, shaking his head to clear the dark thought away.

He wasn’t going to throw his life away here. Not when he had an entire village of pregnant elves waiting for him back home, counting on his return.

And besides—he glanced up at the open sky with a quiet smirk—he knew the entity watching him from up above wouldn’t make it that easy for him anyway.

Instead, he took a slow, deep breath, letting the air fill his lungs.

He wasn’t an invincible god standing above creation anymore.

He was right down in the dirt with everyone else—and he loved every second of it!

—

Unfortunately, the centaurs had zero context for his internal joy.

Looking at a man, who was currently staring at his own exposed bones with a radiant, blissful smile, the vanguard drew the only logical conclusion available to them.

”Is...Is the Hero a masochist?” A young knight whispered, her voice trembling.

”Why is he smiling like that?! His arm is split like my tail hair!”

”I heard rumors...that some humans get...excited by extreme agony...”

”NO WAY! The divine hero is a hardcore masochist?!”

”Well, Lady Poppy did say he was a massive pervert...”

Luca, entirely oblivious to the fact that he was currently being labeled a pain-fetishist, was snapped out of his euphoric trance by a sudden shadow falling over him.

Sigrid slammed her horse knees into the dirt, dropping her head so low her forehead nearly touched his boots.

”I BEG FOR YOUR FORGIVENESS, HERO!”

Sigrid cried out, her voice tight with agonizing guilt.

”I’ve committed an unforgivable sin! I let my pride cloud my judgment and swung with blind force! I swear upon my life, I did not intend to inflict such a grotesque wound upon you!”

Luca blinked, looking down at her bowed head.

”Ah. Hey, don’t worry about it, it’s really—”

”A simple apology is not enough!”

Sigrid interrupted, her eyes blazing with a terrifying resolution as she stood up.

”As a knight who values honor above life itself, I cannot live with the disgrace of having taken advantage of your grace!”

She drew her silver broadsword back out with a sharp SHWING, raising it high above her head—targeting her own left arm.

Poppy shrieked from the sidelines. ”SIGRID, NO!”

”COMMANDER, STOP!” The knights screamed in absolute panic.

Luca’s relaxed demeanor shattered. ”WOAH, WOAH! STOP! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!”

”You lowered your power to match my weak existence, and I foolishly struck you down!”

Sigrid declared solemnly, as she aimed the heavy steel at her own limb.

”To atone for this disgraceful sin, I shall sever my own arm in the exact same manner!”

”Are you insane?!” Luca yelled, panic lacing his voice as he held up his uninjured left hand. ”Hold on! Don’t do that! I literally don’t care!”

”I MUST!” Sigrid cried, tears of pure, stubborn conviction welling in her eyes. ”My honor demands it!”

She was about to bring the blade down when Luca’s voice rang out.

”Stop...”

The word was simple, but the authority behind it made even Sigrid freeze.

She turned to look at him, her sword still raised.

”Hero—”

”I said stop.”

Luca’s voice was cold now, his eyes hard. He looked at her with an expression that brooked no argument.

”Put the sword down. Now.”

Sigrid hesitated. She wanted to argue. She wanted to explain that this was necessary, that she had to atone for her mistake.

But the look in Luca’s eyes made her feel like a child being scolded by a stern parent.

Reluctantly, she lowered her sword and placed it back on the ground.

The centaurs let out a collective sigh of relief, while Luca shook his head, utterly exhausted by the sheer stubbornness of the Centaur before him.

She was ready to cut her own arm off like it was a side dish.

They called him crazy but she was clearly the insane one here!