“Who are you?” the dryad asks looking you dead in the eyes.

Oh, a chance for a cool one-liner! You think, delusional from the pain. Apparently, you’re more fragile than even you realized if one punch to the gut from a semi-competent henchman did that much damage to you. Or was this entire crusade a bit premature and ill-prepared?

How about “The New Demon Lord”? “Your new master”? No, “Your God”! No, not edgy enough!

“Sure, I’ll tell you,” you whisper through the pain and place your hand on the dryad’s dry, wooden, branch-riddled abdomen.

“I’m Death Incarnate!” you say with a grin of a madman and cast [Drain Life] right into his guts. You feel the pain lifting and your mind clear a bit as you see the dryad grimace in pain.

“Aargh!” The Dryad screams as he feels his very life clawed right out of him for the second time.

You’re about to cast [Submission] on him when he punches you in the jaw while still holding you by the collar. You barely manage to hold on to one of the dryad’s branches and see several small white objects leaving your mouth. You feel up the inside of your mouth with your tongue and right away notice several holes where the rows of your perfect teeth should be.

Oh, you’re dead! You declare and cast [Drain Life] again, ripping the life straight out of him. With your spells scoring a direct hit for the fourth time, the dryad finally seems to falter. He takes an unsteady step back, staggers, and falls to the floor with a loud thud. The tree-man never let go of you, so you fall with the dryad, landing right on top of him, scratching your face and arms on the rough twigs.

[Congratulations! Spell [Drain Life] is now level 2!]

The first thing you see when you open your eyes is a twig right in front of your right eyeball. You move away from the twig and place your arm on the dryad’s chest to lean against. That’s when you notice that his chest is moving. He’s still alive! Barely, but alive. His eyes are closed so he must be unconscious.

Before getting up you look around to appraise the situation. Your sister is nowhere closer to beating the bandit leader than she was at the start of it all. In fact, she seems winded and has several bright red burns all over her body. You instantly remember that Ariadne can't use her healing powers mid-combat. Meanwhile, the bunny man is just standing next to his throne—with the naked woman behind him, still faithfully on all fours—and keeps casting fireballs one after the other with a slight grin. It's like he’s not even trying to end it and is simply having fun tormenting the minotaur girl, driving her further and further back, away from him.

The massive brawl between your minions and Xi's is still too chaotic to call one way or the other. Smoke from burning wood and bodies is steadily filling the hall. The stench of burning flesh has finally reached your nostrils, but luckily your stomach is already emptied of its contents, and not in a way that would make you hungry any time soon. You see at least two or three loli imps dashing around the hellscape, completely unfazed by heat nor smoke.

The muscle-giant has engaged Gamma in combat and for the first time, you see her fight someone of equal strength as the bunny girl uses her gigantic shields to block an equally enormous morning star. Each time they clash an oppressive echo goes through the hall like the ringing of a church bell.

Alpha does her best to fight at least three or four enemies at once, though she seemingly has resigned to evading the attacks as she is not allowed a single opportunity to counter-attack, mostly due to the bombardment by small, but deadly ice magic attacks.

As far as your own well-being goes, you feel about as well as you could considering the beating you took from a literal tree. Moving your tongue you notice that your teeth are back, which is quite nice. However, after using both your summoning spells and bombarding the dryad with your offensive spells to finally take him down, your energy is nearly spent.

You have enough energy for one cast of [Summon Spider] or [Submission]. Or instead, you could cast two [Shadow Bolts] or [Drain Life]. No, scratch that—only one cast of [Drain Life]. As its level and power increased, so did the cost. You could spam out [Dick Enlargement] or [Hellfruit], but what good would it do? Since you never bothered to try it out, you don’t even know how [Dick Enlargement] works and if it would be effective against a hostile target.

Help Ariadne? Or leave her to the fight she started and instead try to end the massive brawl first?

Spoiler: Spoiler

Demon Lord - level 5.

Energy 25/230

Warlock spells:

[Shadow Bolt - lvl 1

Energy cost: 10

Deals X magic damage to a single target by firing a single bolt of dark energy at the speed of an arrow.]

[Summon Imps - lvl 2

Energy cost: 80

Summons 5 Imps under your direct command. The imps carry daggers for melee attacks and can each unleash several fireballs.]

[Summon Spider – lvl 1

Energy cost: 25

Summons a Spider with crowd control and assassination capabilities.]

[Drain Life – lvl 2

Energy cost: 15

Deals 0,8*X magic damage to a single target, healing you for the same amount by firing three dark-green spiked claws at the speed of an arrow that tears life essence out of the target.]

[Hellfruit – lvl 1

Energy cost: 5

Summons a small, red, otherworldy edible fruit, that satiates hunger and heals the body.]

Sexomancer Spells:

[Dick Enlargement - lvl 1

Energy cost: 5

Increases the dick of a single target. Target has to have a dick.]

[Aphrodisiac Mist - lvl 2

Energy cost: 40

Unleashes an aphrodisiac mist in a small area, causing all who breathe in the mist to become aroused.]

[Submission - lvl 2

Energy cost: 20

Attacks the mind of a single target, making it more willing to follow your commands.]

Passive traits:

[Summon Duration Trait – lvl 2

The Summon duration time is now increased to a total of 20 minutes.]