Fallen Heaven: Rise of Faizi Tian
Episode 68 – Why Was I Chosen?
Recap
At Blackstone Pass, Faizi Tian faced Demon Lord Varkos, who unleashed a devastating attack against the southern alliance. Faizi used the power of the already-awakened Demon Seal and his Heaven-Breaking Sword to unleash the Demonic Slash of Ruler, shattering Varkos's attack and wounding the Demon Lord. But instead of continuing the battle, Varkos retreated after declaring that the chosen human had finally appeared. His final words left Faizi with a question he could not ignore: why had a Demon Lord called him chosen?
End of Recap
Episode 68 – Why Was I Chosen?
The cheers of the surviving cultivators echoed across Blackstone Pass.
Some warriors raised their weapons toward the sky. Others embraced their companions, grateful that they had survived the arrival of Demon Lord Varkos. After witnessing the destruction caused by the crimson rift, many had believed that the entire pass would become their grave.
Yet they were still alive.
The demons had retreated, and the southern alliance had survived its first direct encounter with a true Demon Lord.
But while others celebrated, Faizi Tian remained silent.
He stood near the broken defensive wall, his Heaven-Breaking Sword resting at his side. The wind moved through his black robes, carrying the smell of scorched earth and the fading traces of demonic energy.
His eyes remained fixed on the place where Varkos had disappeared.
"The chosen human has finally appeared."
Those words continued to echo through his mind.
Faizi had faced powerful enemies before. He had endured dangerous trials, struggled to control the power he possessed, and fought demons who believed humans existed only to be slaughtered.
But Varkos had been different.
The Demon Lord had not merely been surprised by Faizi's attack. After receiving the wound, he had spoken as though something he had been waiting for had finally happened.
Then he had declared that the battle was over.
Not because the southern alliance had destroyed his army.
Not because he had exhausted his strength.
He had simply decided to leave.
Faizi narrowed his eyes.
"What exactly were you looking for, Varkos?"
No one answered.
The crimson rift had vanished, leaving no visible path through which the Demon Lord could be followed.
Faizi slowly turned away from the sky.
If Varkos possessed information about him, then standing on the battlefield and repeating the Demon Lord's words would accomplish nothing. He needed to examine what had happened, separate facts from assumptions, and discover whether there was any connection between Varkos's strange behaviour and the power he had displayed.
He would find the answer himself.
But first, he needed to understand his own condition.
The Price of the Final Strike
Faizi walked toward a quieter section of the pass, away from the wounded cultivators and the commanders organizing the recovery effort.
He sat on a broken stone platform and placed his sword across his knees.
Only then did he allow himself to examine the strain left by the battle.
The Demonic Slash of Ruler had consumed an enormous amount of energy. Even though he had managed to injure Varkos, the attack had pushed his body close to its limits.
Faizi closed his eyes.
He carefully examined the circulation of his spiritual energy, paying attention to the strain in his meridians and the unevenness left by the battle.
He did not attempt to force his cultivation forward.
A breakthrough achieved without a stable foundation could become a weakness rather than an advantage. The difference between possessing immense power and controlling that power had become painfully clear during his confrontation with Varkos.
For a brief moment, his attack had been strong enough to wound a Demon Lord.
But if Varkos had continued fighting, Faizi could not confidently claim that he would have survived.
That truth irritated him.
Not because he had failed to achieve an impossible victory, but because he had discovered another limit standing between him and the strength he needed.
He slowly regulated his breathing.
The flame energy within his body began moving more steadily. He guided it through its existing pathways, allowing his exhausted body to recover without forcing it beyond its capacity.
The Demon Seal remained as it was, a power he had already obtained and awakened through his earlier struggles. Faizi neither treated it as a new discovery nor attempted to summon another burst of destructive energy.
He had learned enough from the battle.
The power of the Seal could help him strike enemies far stronger than himself, but the strength of one attack did not mean he could maintain that level of combat indefinitely.
He needed greater control.
He needed a stronger cultivation foundation.
And he needed to understand the relationship between his own abilities and the things Varkos appeared to recognize.
After a period of quiet cultivation, Faizi opened his eyes.
The exhaustion had not vanished completely, but his breathing had steadied.
He stood and lifted his sword.
"Power alone won't answer this question," he murmured. "I need to know what happened before I decide what it means."
The First Investigation
By the time Faizi returned to the main camp, the surviving cultivators had begun restoring order.
Healers were treating the seriously wounded. The alliance's remaining commanders were inspecting the defensive formations, while scouts prepared to observe the surrounding valleys.
Faizi did not interrupt their work.
Instead, he approached several cultivators who had witnessed the confrontation with Varkos from different positions.
"I want to know exactly what happened when the Demon Lord appeared," he said. "Tell me what you saw. Do not add guesses, and do not leave out details simply because they seemed unimportant."
The first cultivator described the crimson rift and the overwhelming pressure that had forced weaker warriors to their knees.
Another recalled how the demon commanders had immediately lowered their heads when Varkos appeared.
A third described the giant claw that had descended toward Blackstone Pass and the moment Faizi's sword released the black-and-golden slash.
Faizi listened without interrupting.
Most of their accounts confirmed what he already knew. The Demon Lord had arrived, attacked the alliance, and been wounded by the Demonic Slash of Ruler.
But one detail deserved closer attention.
"What happened immediately after he was injured?" Faizi asked.
The cultivator thought carefully.
"At first, he stared at the blood on his finger. Then he looked at you. I thought he was angry, but his expression changed. He seemed surprised."
"Did he look at the other cultivators?"
"Not that I noticed. His attention remained on you."
Faizi nodded.
That observation did not explain Varkos's words, but it confirmed that the Demon Lord's reaction had been directed specifically at him.
Faizi questioned the remaining witnesses. None could provide a definite explanation for the retreat, and no one claimed to know what Varkos meant by calling him chosen.
He dismissed them after recording their accounts.
The investigation had produced no answer yet.
But it had narrowed the question.
Varkos had not simply retreated from a difficult battle. His attention had remained fixed on Faizi, and his words suggested that the encounter meant something beyond the immediate conflict at Blackstone Pass.
Faizi looked toward the distant mountains.
"If you recognized something in me," he said quietly, "then I will find out what it was."
Searching the Battlefield
Faizi returned to the area where his final attack had struck Varkos's demonic claw.
The ground remained badly damaged. Deep cracks crossed the stone, and several sections of the defensive wall had collapsed under the pressure of the battle.
He moved carefully through the wreckage.
He was not searching for a mysterious object or expecting to discover a new power. He wanted to examine the actual traces left by the clash.
The remains of the demonic claw had already begun to dissipate, but faint traces of its energy lingered between the broken stones. Faizi observed their distribution and compared them with the direction of his own attack.
His slash had destroyed the claw and continued upward, cutting through the demonic energy surrounding the crimson rift.
That much was clear.
What remained uncertain was whether Varkos had suffered an injury serious enough to force his retreat.
Faizi examined the area where the Demon Lord had stood after receiving the slash. The ground beneath that location had been damaged by the pressure of his presence, but the traces offered no reliable measure of his remaining strength.
There was no clear evidence that Varkos had been near defeat.
That made the retreat even more significant.
Faizi straightened and looked toward the sky.
"If he could still fight, why leave?"
He considered the possibilities without accepting any of them as fact.
Perhaps Varkos had another objective.
Perhaps the injury had affected his plans more than he had shown.
Or perhaps the Demon Lord had decided that the encounter had already given him the information he wanted.
Faizi could not prove any of these explanations.
He refused to turn speculation into certainty.
As he prepared to leave the damaged area, a faint movement caught his attention.
A surviving demonic beast lay trapped beneath a fallen section of stone near the outer edge of the battlefield. Its body was badly injured, and the fading demonic energy around it suggested that it had been caught in the destruction of the battle.
The creature suddenly opened its eyes.
It lunged toward Faizi.
His sword left its sheath in a flash.
The Heaven-Breaking Sword struck before the beast could reach him, ending the attack in a single controlled movement.
Faizi watched the creature fall, then examined the surrounding ground to ensure no other threat remained nearby.
Even after a major battle, carelessness could still cost a cultivator his life.
He cleaned his blade and returned it to its sheath.
The brief encounter had yielded no secret about Varkos. It had simply reminded him that the battlefield remained dangerous until every threat had been accounted for.
He turned back toward the camp.
His investigation had not solved the mystery, but it had established something important: the Demon Lord's retreat could not be explained by the evidence currently available.
Faizi would need more information.
And he would not obtain it by remaining in one place forever.
A Decision Beyond the Battlefield
Later that evening, Faizi stood before the commanders of the southern alliance.
The worst of the immediate chaos had passed. The wounded were receiving treatment, and the repair of the damaged defenses had begun.
Several commanders looked toward Faizi as he entered.
They expected him to discuss the next demonic assault.
Instead, he asked for the reports gathered during the battle.
Once the documents had been placed before him, Faizi reviewed the available information.
The records described the approach of the demonic forces, the appearance of the crimson rift, and the destructive attacks that had followed. They also contained the observations collected from the surviving cultivators.
Nothing offered a definite answer to Varkos's strange declaration.
Faizi closed the final report.
"We cannot predict when the demons will attack again," he said. "The defenses must be repaired, and the scouts must continue watching the surrounding routes."
The commanders nodded.
"But there is another matter," Faizi continued. "Varkos recognized something about me, or believed that I had some significance to him. I intend to discover why."
One of the commanders frowned.
"Do you believe his words were connected to the Demon Seal?"
"I don't know."
Faizi's answer was immediate.
"The Seal is part of my cultivation journey, and Varkos's reaction makes it worth considering. But I have no proof that it was the reason he called me chosen. I will not claim otherwise until the evidence supports it."
The commander fell silent.
Faizi continued, "Preserve the records of this battle. If any cultivator remembers an overlooked detail about Varkos's arrival or retreat, I want to hear it. Keep the investigation separate from rumours. We need facts, not frightened guesses."
The alliance's leaders agreed to cooperate.
Faizi had not promised them an easy answer. He had not claimed to understand the Demon Lord's intentions.
He had simply made it clear that the question would not be forgotten.
When the meeting ended, he left the commanders to their work.
Blackstone Pass needed protection, and the surviving cultivators needed time to recover. Faizi would not abandon those responsibilities simply because a mystery had captured his attention.
But neither would he ignore the possibility that Varkos's words pointed toward a danger greater than the battle they had just survived.
The Demon Lord had threatened to come for his soul personally.
Faizi intended to be prepared when that day arrived.
The Path Ahead
Night covered Blackstone Pass.
The defensive fires burned along the repaired sections of the wall, and the sounds of the camp gradually softened. Exhausted cultivators rested wherever they could, while the scouts maintained their watch over the dark valleys.
Faizi stood alone beneath the open sky.
He thought about his parents and the village he had lost. The demons had taken away the life he once knew, and his journey had begun with the desire to become strong enough to avenge them.
That purpose remained.
But each battle had taught him that revenge alone could not prepare him for every danger.
If he wanted to protect the people who still stood behind him, he needed to understand the enemies he faced. He needed to recognize the limits of his strength and overcome them through cultivation, discipline, and experience.
Varkos had introduced a question that Faizi could not yet answer.
Why had a Demon Lord called him the chosen human?
Was it something about his power? Something about the Demon Seal? Or something else entirely?
For now, all three remained possibilities, not conclusions.
Faizi looked toward the horizon where the crimson rift had appeared.
"I won't let your words control my path, Varkos," he said. "But I will discover what you meant."
A cold wind passed over the mountains.
Faizi turned and walked back toward the camp, his mind already focused on the work ahead. He would continue his cultivation, help strengthen the alliance's defenses, and gather every reliable piece of information he could find.
He did not need to solve the mystery tonight.
He only needed to take the next step.
Far away, beyond the Southern Continent, the Celestial Continent remained beneath its ancient skies. Within the sacred territory of the Celestial Xue Clan, Afiya Xue continued her own cultivation, with the image of the mysterious young swordsman still fresh in her memory.
She had not met him.
She knew nothing of the questions troubling him after the battle.
For now, their paths remained separated by distant lands and an uncertain future.
Yet the events at Blackstone Pass had changed the course of Faizi Tian's journey.
The Demon Lord had noticed him.
And Faizi had decided that he would no longer leave the meaning of those words unexplored.
The mystery remained unanswered.
But the investigation had begun.
To Be Continued...
Next Episode: Episode 69 – The Trail of the Demonic Army