Chapter 176

"And do you think that is going to work?" Nathan asked. "Those things they used against the vegetation giants sure were powerful, but they will need hundreds if not thousands of them to destroy a significative portion of the jungle."

"According to the information they have given me, they have another kind of weapon capable of destroying large areas of vegetation. With it, they plan to open a path for us to reach the site where the meteorite landed while at the same time they waste all the jungle's energy by attacking other areas." Azrael explained.

"Doesn't sound like a bad plan. But we may need to plan a little more before going on a mission like this. We need to prepare a plan to deal with the vegetation effectively. Even if the military can clear a large chunk of vegetation, we will be in problems if it begins to regenerate at a high pace around us before we get to our destination." Nathan said.

"Well, according to what I have managed to see during the battle, even though cutting them can slow them a bit, they will regenerate after a few seconds with the help of that annoying light. The best way to deal with them is fire or cold. And well, that black arm of yours also seems pretty effective." Jason said while looking at Travis.

"Yeah, corruption works excellent against those things because it doesn't allow them to recover with their shine. The energy they get from it gets corrupted before they start regenerating, turning it into something closer to poison for them." Travis explained. "Sadly, there aren't many of my men capable of using corruption, so we can't rely too heavily on it."

"What if we block the energy flow?" Azrael suddenly asked.

"Block the energy flow?" Nathan and Travis asked at the same time.

"He said that he had corrupted the light, so it hurts the vegetation instead of healing it, which means we should be able to affect it in other ways. If that light is a form of energy, we might be able to stop its flow with energy barriers and such tactics." Azrael explained.

"It will be challenging to do it against many enemies, but it might work against those vegetation giants and similar enemies, so let's try it if we have the chance," Jason said.

"Not only that, but my people have ways to gather energy from the surroundings and store it inside objects. We could seal large amounts of that light with some preparation so our enemies can't use it." Nathan explained while showing the bracelets on his arms.

"Do you think a few runes would be able to store enough energy for it to be significant?" Travis asked while arching an eyebrow.

"A few, no. I don't think even a few hundred would be enough." Nathan replied. "But no one says we need to attack immediately. We can take our time to prepare and learn how to fight these things in the best way possible."

"What do you suggest then?" Azrael asked.

"We spend a day or two preparing for the fight, investigating how to counter the vegetation's capacities and creating weapons to use against them. Once we are ready, we ask the military to create the path for us, and we strike so fast that those plants don't even have time to know what had happened." Nathan suggested.

Following Nathan's plan, the army created a small camp near the edge of the clearing. They didn't want to stay by the military's base side, but at the same time, they didn't want to camp inside the jungle, so that was the best place available for them.

To be sure they would be safe, they burned down an area of jungle near them, to which the vegetation reacted by assaulting them. That allowed the cultivators to test their theories and tactics, such as isolating the plants with barriers, which resulted incredulously effective.

While this happened, some of Nathan's men worked on a weapon against the vegetation. If someone looked at it, it wouldn't look any different from a tribal totem made of wood, but the truth was that they were logs filled with energy-gathering runes.

Suppose they used them to store the vegetation's light. In that case, they should be able to steal enough energy to be significant in the battle, or at least it should give them a few extra seconds before the vegetation managed to recover from their attacks.

When they finished the fifth totem, they decided they were enough, so they contacted the military to start the attack as soon as possible.