The vine was a fairly powerful resource, especially when it still retained a proportion of Gaia's wood energy.
Ves needed to leverage this resource as well as the wood energy in the environment to produce a fast and explosive result.
"Should I induce it to explode?"
No. It wouldn't work. He very much doubted that the vine could be made to explode all at once.
It was best to work with the existing strengths and inclinations of what the Elegant Rage possessed.
In the case of the vine, it had grown extraordinarily tough, and its thorns were also capable of inflicting decent damage. It had become a good tool for trapping and injuring anything caught by this growth.
"Then let's make its ability to entangle opponents stronger. How can the alien swordsman remain a threat when the vine has wrapped up his limbs?"
The vine did not even have to inflict any damage onto the lightning manifestation. It was already enough for the vine to immobilize and stop the alien swordsman's attacks. The Elegant Rage herself could do the rest!
There were several major concerns, though.
For one, the vine needed to be launched at the enemy without getting intercepted by a fire or ice sword.
The vine also needed to endure a lot of fire and frost exposure. This required a constant infusion of wood energy to rapidly repair itself while also fending off the elemental attacks over an extended period of time.
"A regular effort is not enough." Ves concluded.
Both fire and ice had proven to be highly effective against wood!
Fire posed the most direct threat to the vine because the latter was inherently vulnerable to catching flame.
Ice could freeze the cells of the vine, thereby causing its activity to slow down and find it much more difficult to maintain its regeneration processes.
Ves could only draw upon the example of the Emperor Tree to resist these dangerous effects.
"As long as the vine has access to a lot of wood energy, it can outlast any hostile effect!"
Only an overwhelmingly powerful attack had a chance of overcoming the rapid regeneration of the vine, but it was unlikely for the four-armed swordsman to possess this capability.
So long as the vine successfully inhibited the lightning manifestation's ability to perform his elemental sword techniques, much of the threat posed by this enemy should be gone.
"The vine doesn't have to last forever. It only needs to maintain a strong hold long enough for the Elegant Rage to land the killing blow."
In short, it all came down to energy. The Elegant Rage not only needed to draw upon a lot of wood energy, but infuse it all into the thorny vine so that it could do its job.
It was not easy to attract a large quantity of wood energy. The Elegant Rage was far weaker than the Emperor Tree in this aspect. Its inherent wood energy reserves were also rather paltry and inadequate for the job.
Ves quickly came up with two potential ways for the Elegant Rage to summon a lot more wood energy in a hurry.
"It can drain itself to fuel her vine."
This was the first idea that came to his mind. It should be fairly effective as the Elegant Rage should be able to release a lot of wood energy by depleting the strength of her wooden components.
So long as the Elegant Rage absorbed a lot of wood energy or replaced her withered wooden parts with healthy ones after the battle, the self-inflicted damage shouldn't be permanent.
The problem with this approach was that it would leave the mech drained and weakened after overcoming this challenge!
This was bad as a lightning manifestation that was 30 percent more powerful than the alien swordsman would appear shortly afterwards!
The Elegant Rage absolutely could not afford to start the final fight for her survival in a drained and weakened state.
Ves therefore directed his attention elsewhere. It was not acceptable to drain the wood energy from the Elegant Rage's vital components, but what about other reservoirs of wood energy?
"What if… the Elegant Rage can drain the energies of the trees in the surrounding forest?"
This was a much more acceptable idea!
Although the devastation to the forest and the local ecosystem would definitely be considerable due to the need to requisition a huge amount of wood energy, it was all for a good cause!
Nothing came for free. Ves would rather sacrifice the lives of a million trees than have the Elegant Rage sacrifice her own life.
"It won't be easy, but I think there's a way to do it." He grinned.
Ideas already began to swirl in his mind. He needed to puzzle out a way for the Elegant Rage to quickly and efficiently drain an entire forest of all of its wood energy.
"The faster, the better!"