"Even if you're made of vines, I WILL make you bleed!"
Ash had fully embraced the violence brewing in his heart.
Every pain that coursed through his body fueled his power.
The stag had returned, standing once more, the damages that Ash dealt before felt like a fever dream with the stag's unnatural quick regeneration.
No matter how many vines had wilted from Ash's necrotic venom, they had been cast away, and new vines had regrown. Restoring the stag's body.
But Ash didn't give a damn.
If the stag could just regenerate its whole body from a tiny portion of its remaining body, then Ash just needed to destroy them all.
Besides, he wouldn't be repeating the same mistake as before.
He had grown accustomed to the pain ravaging his body, he could think a little clearer now.
Ash appeared right in front of the stag once more using his twitchstep.
The stag's eyes glowed once more, preparing to repeat the same attack it had used before to force Ash to run away.
But Ash wouldn't let it.
"Restrain it!" His shout traveled through the seemingly empty forest.
Reaching nothing but the deaf trees and weeds on the ground.
But something answered his call.
From one of the high branches, another vine creature jumped down, spreading its vines all over the stag's body.
Ash's doppelganger had joined the battle.
It spread its vines to yank the stag's head up, cancelling the spell it was about to unleash.
Even more vines tied the stag's body, toppling the stag back down for the second time as its feet were tied up tightly.
But being a creature made of vines, the stag didn't stay still.
It untied the braids in its body, lashing out to attack Ash and the newcomer.
Ash summoned his crimson vines and retaliated, cutting off the vines from their base before they could reach him.
As for the doppelganger, it remained unperturbed even when vines choked its neck and squeezed its torso.
It was also a creature made out of a vine? What's the use of choking it?
With the knowledge he got from experimenting with his own vine creature, Ash sent out the original venom of the carnivorous tree to the crimson vines.
The necrotic venom meshed with the ossification venom as the crimson vines went around stabbing the stag's whole body.
The outer layer of vines of the stag began wilting and turning into rigid steelbark anywhere the crimson vines went.
The stag tried retaliating, but the doppelganger kept its movement limited while Ash just spread his venoms nonstop.
As a result, almost every part of the stag had turned to rigid steelbark.
Other than a very small part, which Ash had intentionally left open.
The huge creature was now trapped inside its own second skin.
The doppelganger's vines keep the steelbark in place, preventing the stag from abandoning the outermost layer of vines to free itself.
Not wasting a second, Ash pulled back the ossification venom from his crimson vines.
On the small opening to the stag's body, Ash thrusted the crimson vines inside.
Just like how he killed the carnivorous tree from the inside, Ash would spread his crimson vines deep into the body of the stag.
Whatever gave it the ability to regenerate indefinitely, it must be something deep inside the stag.
Feeling the necrotic venom corroding its whole body, the stag tried to retaliate harder.
And for a being of 6-meter-tall tall, its strength was not to be trifled with.
Even with the doppelganger that could summon many more vines from its body, its grip onto the steelbark skin began to loosen.
Ash was forced to use his thorny vines to help the doppelganger, making sure to keep his thorns hitting the steelbark and not the stag's body.
Buffing his already powerful enemy with even more strength wasn't something he wanted to do.
With the thorny vines layering over the doppelganger's vines, it also became several times thicker, gaining more strength to keep the stag unmoving.
Their effort bore fruit as the struggle of the stag was contained.
The only thing left for Ash to finally finish off the damned stag was to find whatever kept regenerating the stag's body.
Or infect its whole body with necrotic venom, making sure no healthy vines survive.
The crimson vines dug deeper and deeper.
The resistance of the living vines turned out to be harder than the trunk of the carnivorous tree.
The vines kept trying to push his crimson vines away, even with the cost of their own lives.
But as simply touching the crimson vines spelled death for them, Ash's crimson vines made their way deeper and farther into the stag's body.
Ash could feel his victory getting closer and closer to him as his crimson vines were about to reach the middle of the stag's body.
The sweet smell of payback for making him helpless filled his nose.
But just as Ash was about to go in for one last push, he felt a change on the tip of his crimson vines.
Most of his senses weren't connected to the crimson vines.
Only the sense of touch remained.
And while he felt cutting through vines before, just at that moment, he felt something else.
He felt something soft, warm, like hair- no fur.
But before his vines could penetrate even deeper, a silver, greenish glow enveloped the whole body of the stag.
It bypassed the steelbark skin and enveloped the doppelganger, its vines, and Ash's thorny vines.
The glow also traveled from his crimson vines to his hands.
Ash felt something was wrong. Very wrong.
He released his connection with crimson vines and jumped backward with twitchstep.
The silvery green glow intensified in the dark night.
It turned as bright as a second sun, rendering Ash to close his eyes whether he wanted to or not.
When the light died down, Ash opened up his eyes and saw the stag standing once more.
But it didn't look the same.
The stag now stood over 8 meters tall, the antlers on its head were almost twice as big as Ash's body.
The steelbark skin had fallen to the ground, along with his doppelganger, which didn't look humanoid anymore with its body torn to shreds.
Seeing the imposing figure of the stag, Ash finally returned to his senses.
The newly spliced disease had long been adopted by his body, he just didn't realize it before. He was drunk on adrenaline.
But he was sober now.
And he realized.
'Run. I have to run.'