The truth

Grootslang.

A terrifying monster with the head of an elephant and body of a snake, the Grootslang was considered to be one of the most dangerous of all beasts. A descended of the heaven swallowing python as well as the heaven trampling elephant, it was a mythical monster with incredible powers.

The Grootslang often stayed in deep dark caves deep in the earth. It's favorite past time was to kill people and find treasures and gems. Unfortunately the bloodline it inherited meant that it was extremely cruel and liked to even torture and play with its prey before it killed and ate it.

Due to its nature of being cruel and hungry, it often killed a huge number of people. As a result, a long time before Bai Yun's previous life, people banded together and started a campaign to eliminate the Grootslang from the universe. It only ended when the Grootslang was near extinction, and the magical beast race finally stepped in to protect the species. By the time Bai Yun was born, the Grootslangs were much fewer and quieter and cases of them attacking humans were few and in between.

All of this meant that the moment the Grootslang was let loose, it was the end of the group. Their chances of getting out of here alive were minimal at best.

As the group watched, they saw the Grootslang slowly turn around and start attacking the other team. The group sighed in relief at the sight. At least it would be a while before they are killed. Maybe they could come up with a countermeasure in the meantime.

"Let's run and hide. According to what the voice said, maybe we can escape if the group that went up somehow succeeded in the third test." Shadow ten said. Usually he would be worried about the fact that someone else would be getting the credit for the exploration. But right now they were more scared about losing their lives to about credit.

"What's the point." Bai Yun said. "Based on the enormous size of it it must have at least reached the dao step. And the Grootslang is fast even in its own cultivation realm. We have no hope of success."

"If it has already reached the dao step, then it would have gained sentience and become a magical beast, right." Shadow ninety asked. "Can't we reason with it, or beg us to let us go."

"If it was any other beast it would have been possible." Bai Yun replied. "But not with the Grootslang. It enjoys killing humans. They only think of us as prey. And would you communicate with a rabbit? Its the same for the Grootslang.That is why they were hunted to near extinction in the past. I never thought that I would see one today."

"No matter." Shadow one said. "I have no desire to make it easier for the beast. Let us try to see how long it would take him to kill us."

After seeing this the group charged back into the tunnels. From the look of things, these tunnels were probably made by the Grootslang. But they had no other choice. Being out in the open would only make them fodder for the Grootslang even faster.

As they ran, Bai Yun felt a weird kind of peace. He was using every piece of memory in his mind to try and come up with a solution. But no matter how hard he tried he could not. Since the restriction of the small world was powerful, he could not bring anything whose power was over the qi condensation realm. As a result, he had none of his life saving things with him.

As he realized this, Bai Yun finally realized that he had run out of luck. This was probably where he was going to die. He realized that his habit of heading straight into danger had finally backfired on him.

Thus was the first time in both of his lives that Bai Yun felt that he had no chance of survival. No matter whether it was when he was chased by an army of devils during the great war, or when he was facing the devil emperor or even when he faced the enemy in the auction house, he had never felt so close to death. He felt as if he was going to die and there was nothing that he could do about it.

But even as he thought about death, he thought about his parents. His parents from his previous life were gone, but his parents from his current lie were still alive. He was sure that they would mourn him. That they would be sad. Somehow, he felt a pain in his heart when he thought about them.

Bai Yun had told himself that he should keep a distance from his family. He felt that they were not his true parents. But now he realized that without even realizing it, he had placed them in the heart right next to his parents from his past life. Somehow the image of his mother smiling and teaching him cultivation in his past life overlapped with that of Xiao Mei-er crying and refusing to let him leave the house.

Bai Yun shook his head and continued running. They quickly reached the other end of the hill and continued running. Their hope was to find a place where they could hide out for long enough to survive. But most of the land was rocky and there was nowhere to hide. Their only consolation was the fact that due to the maze like nature of the place, it would take a while for the Grootslang to find them.

As he looked up into the sky, Bai Yun was startled. He realized that the inscriptions restricting their ascend were gone. When he pointed it out, the rest was glad for a moment before they calmed down. Even though it meant that they could run in an extra dimension, it didn't matter much to them. After all none of them could fly. The only way this was useful was if there was a good hole to hide in somewhere above them.

But even after running for half an hour the Grootslang had not caught up with them. This confused Bai Yun. The Grootslang was known for its speed and cruelty. Why would it take so long to catch up with them? Maybe the beast was playing with its prey or torturing it before killing it.

When he raised his concerns to the rest, they went pale with fear. Now more than dying, they feared being tortured by the beast. Some of them even thought about ending their own lives if the beast caught up with them.

Suddenly there was a rumble in the distance. As the group watched, one of the giant rock slabs in the distance crumbled and collapsed in front of them. And from the rubble, a giant elephant head slowly slithered out.

Seeing the Grootslang in the distance, the group turned pale with fear. "Is this fast enough for you." Shadow ten cursed.

But even as he watched the approaching Grootslang, Bai Yun felt that something was wrong. In his past life, he had hunted a Grootslang once. Even though this one was nowhere near that in size and speed, it still did not match up with what he knew about Grootslangs. The Grootslang should be much faster than it was being. Based on its size, it should be at the dao step. But a dao step turtle would move faster than the Grootslang was currently moving.

"We need to run away in different directions. Staying together means dying that must faster." Bai Yun said. He ignored the inconsistencies he saw and threw them to the back of the head. After all surviving was the most important thing for now. Everything else could wait.

The group agreed with Bai Yun's thoughts immediately. Without waiting for anybody else, each member of the group turned in different directions and started to run with all their might.

The Grootslang stared at its prey for a while. Then it looked at Shadow forty four, who was closest to it and started to lazily chase after him. The whole thing seemed to be a fun endeavor for the Grootslang as it seemed to be moving even slower than before. The rest of them let off a sigh of relief before taking off even faster.

"Damn it, why the hell would a formation master keep a Grootslang as a pet!" Shadow one cursed as he ran.

Bai Yun heard what he said and continued to run away. But then he came to a sudden stop. "What did you say?" He asked Shadow one incredulously while running to catch up with him.

"What?" Shadow one was confused. He did not why Bai Yun ran towards him.

"About a formation master?"

"Tian Ming, the person who owned this small world." Shadow one explained. "Everyone knows that he is a world famous formation master from four hundred thousand years ago. What, you didn't know about it."

The moment Bai Yun heard this, it was like an explosion was set off inside his head. One by one the pieces that he had missed before started to fall into place. As he turned around to look at the Grootslang, somehow his eyes finally recovered. It felt as if he was he finally could see the world clearly, for what it truly was.

Bai Yun thought of the fact that when they arrived he felt something wrong with the world. His eyes were blurry so he didn't notice it then, but he finally realized what his perception had caught then. The identical grasses. The uniform flowers. Those repeating patterns sewn into the landscape. The qi that was the same as the world outside.

Bai Yun thought of the bridges that appeared, and the way they twisted around confusing the senses. He thought of the trees that repeated and the vines and the mice that were identical to each other. As if they were all copies of a single blueprint.

He thought of the fact that there were five bridges, and there were five teams. He thought of how each team easily found a bridge. As if someone was directing the whole thing from behind. Like a puppeteer guiding the world to play out a script.

Bai Yun looked at the rocks. Even though they were made to look different, all the rocks were made from the same thing. He saw the repeating patterns hat he had missed making the very fabric of the land that he stood on. Patterns he had missed due to his eyes.

He saw the Grootslang. He finally realized why it was so slow. Why the scales on it all behaves the same.

He then closed his eyes and cursed himself. As someone who had reached the god realm in formations, he should have seen this earlier. He should not have been led by the nose for so long. After all, the person who created this wasn't trying to hide it at all. Everything was laid out in the open.

That's right. They were not in a small world.

They were in a very powerful formation.

The false world.

And with this realization came a small piece of hope.

And a chance at survival.