"Cut the nonsense."
Shi Po squeezed out three words between his sharp teeth.
"Okay."
Meng Jiu nodded, his tone as calm as if he was agreeing to a simple request.
"Then let's get started."
"Hmph!"
With a cold snort, Shi Po suddenly stretched its forelimbs, and its entire deformed torso bounced off the ground.
It did not stand, but remained on all fours after bouncing up.
Just the forelimbs left the ground and the hind legs kicked off the ground, like a poisonous scorpion jumping out from the crack in the rock and rushing towards Meng Jiu.
The five Root Bone claws on the forelimbs are spread out, and the gray-white Bone Spike at the tips of the claws glow coldly in the sunlight, with dark green will-o'-the-wisps faintly flowing around the thorn tips.
Meng Jiu didn't move.
He gently lifted the bamboo pole in his hand, and the bamboo tip drew a very small circle in front of him.
The circle was only the size of a washbasin, but it happened to seal the route Shi Po came to outside the circle.
The path traced by the bamboo tip left a circle of light cyan light marks, and there were faint bamboo patterns flowing in the light marks.
Shi Po's bone claw hit the circle of light cyan light marks.
It was expected to hit the hard-bang Sword Qi barrier.
But the moment the bone claws submerged into the light mark, they felt an extremely flexible resistance, as if a punch had been punched into a skin bag filled with water, and most of the strength was removed.
Its forelimbs sank half a foot deep into the light mark, and then were pushed back by a soft elastic force.
The elasticity is neither fierce nor strong, but so dense that it is difficult to exert any force.
"Bamboo?"
Shi Po's forelimbs fell back to the ground, and the five Root Bone claws scraped five white marks on the stone bricks.
It lowered its head and glanced at the light cyan remaining light on the tips of its claws. Those lights were slowly seeping into its Bone Spike, giving it a warm and slightly cool touch.
"Your weapons are a bit unique."
"This is Jade Bamboo."
Meng Jiu took the bamboo pole back in front of him, and tapped the bamboo tip lightly on the stone bricks twice.
"Grown from a young seedling."
"Raised for fifty thousand years."
"Watering, loosening the soil, pruning branches, and preventing insects, nothing was left behind."
"It grows slowly. It took fifty thousand years to reach five feet tall."
"But it is strong, every joint is solid, and there is no hollow."
Shi Po's green will-o'-the-wisp flashed in his eye sockets.
It couldn't understand what the blind man was saying.
A piece of bamboo has been growing for 50,000 years. What does it have to do with fighting?
"So much nonsense."
"Death!"
It exerted force on its forelimbs again, this time it did not pounce directly, but slowly crawled around Meng Jiu's flanks.
Its hind limbs were dragged behind it, Bone Spike scraped against the stone bricks, making a fine creaking sound, leaving a trail of sticky dark red liquid on the path it crawled.
It climbed half a circle and suddenly shot up from the side.
The five Root Bone claws of the forelimbs grabbed Meng Jiu's waist and ribs, and at the same time, the hind limbs kicked off the ground.
The entire torso was like a deformed rock that was thrown out, hitting the bottom wall of Meng Jiu with rotating force.
The speed of this blow was twice as fast as before, and the will-o'-the-wisp on the bone claw drew a dark green arc as it rotated.
"Okay."
Meng Jiu's bamboo pole moved.
He moved the bamboo pole sideways from his side, with the bamboo tip facing left and the bamboo tail facing right, and placed it flat an inch in front of him.
Shi Po spun and hit, with five Root Bone claws grabbing onto the bamboo pole. The bone tips collided with the bamboo body, making a series of intensive crisp sounds, like fingernails scraping against a porcelain surface.
The light cyan light on the surface of the bamboo pole caused fine cracks under the scratching of the bone claws, but the cracks healed themselves in the blink of an eye.
"Good-hard bamboo."
Shi Po's forelimbs retreated at the touch. It bounced off the bamboo pole and landed three feet away. The tips of its five Root Bone claws were stained with a few wisps of light cyan light.
Its green will-o'-the-wisp stared at the bamboo pole for a few seconds, then suddenly smiled.
When it laughed, its mouth opened even wider, and two rows of sharp teeth like broken bone china collided up and down, making a tooth-wrenching squeaking sound.
"It's just a piece of bamboo."
"Any Root Bone thorn on Laozi's body is harder than it."
"You try."
Meng Jiu said, his tone still gentle.