Shen Qingci dodged two of them by twisting her body, but the third grazed her shoulder, instantly leaving a scorched mark on her robe and causing a searing pain in her flesh.
Planting her foot on a protruding rock ledge on the cliff face, she swung her sword upward in a backhand strike. The wind from her blade carried an arc of lightning, striking the wing of another Purple-Necked Lightning Vulture that was diving down toward her.
The vulture was knocked sideways by the strike, its feathers bristling. With half of its wing rendered numb and weak, its talons clawed frantically at the cliff face.
Without pausing, Shen Qingci used Thunder-Concealment Steps to flash forward, driving the tip of her sword straight into its underbelly.
With a twist of her wrist, she channeled all of her spiritual energy into the blade.
The vulture's belly burst open, splattering her with scorched feathers and shredded flesh. The Purple-Necked Lightning Vulture let out a short, mournful cry before falling straight down the cliff.
The remaining five vultures were completely enraged, surrounding the protruding rock ledge beneath her feet.
Their shrill shrieks merged into a single deafening roar, scraping painfully against her sea of consciousness.
Shen Qingci wedged one hand into a crack in the cliff to steady herself, while her other hand raised her sword horizontally to block two incoming swoops.
Lightning arcs crackled along her blade, clashing with the electrical currents beneath the Purple-Necked Lightning Vultures' wings, causing rock fragments to explode and fly off the cliff face.
At the most perilous moment, the leading mid Foundation Establishment stage Purple-Necked Lightning Vulture dived straight down from directly above her. Its wings were tucked in, its lightning feathers bristled all over, and its sharp talons reached for her head.
Shen Qingci only had time to tilt her head half an inch aside. The talons scraped across her right shoulder, tearing through her robe and ripping away a large chunk of flesh.
Letting out a muffled groan, she reached out and grabbed the vulture's talon, desperately channeling her lightning force into it...
The Purple-Necked Lightning Vulture shuddered violently as the lightning force surged through its talon bones and spread throughout its entire body, causing it to flap its wings frantically.
Shen Qingci was dragged along, slamming repeatedly against the cliff face. Her shoulders and back were covered in bruises and cuts, and the scabbed wound on her calf tore open once more, sending drops of blood trickling down her ankle.
She gritted her teeth and refused to let go. Pressing her back against the cliff to steady herself, she freed her right hand to adjust her sword's angle, thrusting it diagonally into the vulture's underwing.
The sword pierced through from the root of its wing into its chest, the tip emerging from its collarbone on the other side, its scorched feathers thoroughly drenched in blood.
The Purple-Necked Lightning Vulture let out a final wail as its wings went limp.
Shen Qingci released her grip, letting it fall.
She knelt on the rock ledge, her right arm so painful she could barely lift it. The old wounds on her shoulder and leg, torn open by the intense struggle, throbbed with a renewed, overwhelming pain.
The remaining four Purple-Necked Lightning Vultures circled in the air a few times. Ultimately, they turned around and shrieked as they retreated into the thunderclouds.
Only the howling wind and the rumbling thunder remained along the cliffside.
Shen Qingci leaned against the cliff, panting for a long time before sliding her sword into a crack in the rock. Tearing a strip of fabric from her hem, she retrieved some Blood-Stopping Powder from her storage bag, sprinkled it over her wounds, and hastily bound her right shoulder.
She looked up at the top of the cliff. There were still over three hundred zhang left to go.
The higher she went, the more abundant the lightning spiritual energy became, which would be of immense benefit to her cultivation. However, the nesting grounds of the Purple-Necked Lightning Vultures were likely located in this area. Even so, she could not turn back now.
She regulated her breathing, carried her wounded body, and continued her ascent.
Climbing close to the cliff face all the way, she reached a relatively flat, recessed ledge halfway up the cliff by the Wei hour.
The ledge was about five chi long, just spacious enough for one person to sit cross-legged and meditate.
Just ten zhang above her head were the heavy thunderclouds. Fine, dense lightning bolts constantly struck down, hitting the cliff face and her robe with soft, crackling sounds.
Shen Qingci found a hollow to sit in and held her sword across her knees. The concentration of lightning spiritual energy here was nearly five times higher than at the base of the cliff, causing her meridians to ache slightly as she inhaled it.
She extended her divine sense to carefully scout the surroundings. Only after confirming there were no signs of the vulture flock returning did she close her eyes and circulate her cultivation method.
The purple vortex of qi in her dantian spun, beginning to absorb the overwhelming lightning spiritual energy.
On her first day of climbing the cliff, she had to heal her injuries before she could think about making progress.
Time lost all meaning on the cliff. These days of fighting while healing, shifting from one spot to another, passed in a flash.
The first month was the hardest to endure.
The Purple-Necked Lightning Vultures viewed her as an unwelcome intruder. Every few days, a group of three to five would swoop down to attack her.
She fought while retreating, using the cracks and protruding rocks of the cliff face to maneuver. She fought when she could, and climbed higher when she couldn't. Once she reached the border of the thunderclouds, the lightning vultures stopped pursuing her. The lightning storms within were too dense, and even Foundation Establishment stage lightning birds did not dare to venture inside lightly.
Later, she figured out their pattern.
The lightning vultures were accustomed to hunting twice a day, at dawn and dusk, while remaining most quiet at noon and in the dead of night.
She specifically chose those two quiet periods to climb, spending the rest of her time meditating on the recessed ledges.
However, recessed ledges on the cliff face were rare. Sometimes she would climb for two shichen without finding a single spot to sit cross-legged, forcing her to use her sword to carve out shallow footholds in the cliffside so she could rest while hanging suspended.
In the second month, she began to take the initiative and fight back.
Through repeated observation, she thoroughly understood the details of the vulture flock on this cliff face: the entire flock was led by a late Foundation Establishment stage vulture king, with five mid Foundation Establishment stage, nine early Foundation Establishment stage adult birds, and six or seven peak Qi Refining stage young birds.
The six she had encountered earlier were the flock's outer patrol squad.
She started by targeting isolated young birds. One day she would pluck a lightning feather, the next day she would break a wing bone, and the day after she would chase half-grown young birds all over the cliff face.
The flock was so thoroughly disrupted by her that they had no peace day or night, and they even had to deploy two vultures just to stand guard whenever they went out to hunt.
By the end of the second month, the remaining eight early Foundation Establishment stage Purple-Necked Lightning Vultures had all perished under her sword.
She harvested three beast cores, each the size of a pigeon's egg, pale purple, and wrapped in several rings of lightning threads.
She plucked over a hundred lightning feathers, though less than half were completely intact; the rest had been ruined during the battles.
She kept four sets of vulture beaks and talon bones, which were hard enough to serve as primary materials for refining artifacts.
Every time she climbed down the cliff, she was in a state of utter disarray.
The first time she descended with two lightning vulture beast cores, her left arm had been torn open by a vulture's talon, leaving a half-chi-long gash deep enough to expose the bone. It took an entire bottle of Blood-Stopping Powder to finally stem the bleeding.
Her right calf had also suffered a new injury before the old one could heal, struck by a lightning vulture's wing bone. It was severely swollen, stretching her robe tight.
When she entered Haiyue Pavilion, the shop assistant at the door barely recognized her, taking her for some unfortunate soul who had just crawled out of a sea beast's belly.
The female cultivator sitting behind the counter raised her eyes to look at her, a subtle expression crossing her face.
Shen Qingci took out three beast cores, four sets of vulture beaks and talon bones, and fifty-three intact lightning feathers, arranging them one by one on the counter.
The female cultivator set down her abacus, first inspecting the beast cores, then feeling the vulture bones, and finally holding the lightning feathers up to the spiritual light to examine them one by one.
The price she quoted was ten percent higher than the market rate.
“Fellow Daoist, you should tend to your injuries as soon as possible,” the female cultivator said as she packed away the goods. She retrieved a bottle of Yellow-grade High-rank Bone-Knitting Salve from beneath the counter and pushed it toward her.
Shen Qingci looked up at her, accepted the bottle, thanked her, and turned to leave.
The second time she came down the cliff, she only replenished some of her daily pills before quickly heading back. Her injuries were minor, and she didn't stay long at Haiyue Pavilion.
The third time she came down the cliff, Shen Qingci's injuries were even more severe.
Her back had been ripped open with three deep gashes by vulture talons, the deepest of which ran from her shoulder blade down to her lower back. Her robe hung in shredded tatters, completely soaking through her undergarments.
Her long hair and eyebrows had been completely singed off by the lightning force, leaving her scalp scorched red.
Dragging the entire corpse of the late Foundation Establishment stage Purple-Necked Lightning Vulture, she walked into Haiyue Pavilion and dumped it heavily onto the floor.
The vulture king was as tall as two grown men, with a wingspan of nearly five zhang. Its lightning feathers were scorched and curled, and there was a mangled bloody hole in its belly where a sword had twisted through.
This was an opportunity she had waited seven days for. Taking advantage of the moment when the vulture king flew low to shed its feathers, leaving its underbelly completely exposed, she had lunged from diagonally below, piercing its third rib and crushing its lightning sac.
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