"Very well. Let's go."
The first steps on Hikari's long journey had only just begun. And even in the freezing temperatures of their current location, in which the wind of icy cold snow and frozen water was still blowing to a point where most would consider it a little bit of a snowstorm or a blizzard, was nothing compared to what she was about to face. Just as Deniel initially indicated, it was a hundred meters or so ahead of them directly north, and would take a little bit to reach the destination. Along the way he didn't make much of an attempt to converse with her, as he found the temptation to reveal the way through all to consuming for him; the last thing he wanted was for her to fail and die, but at the same time there would be no rigor in the trial if he gave away all of the secrets. Attempting to from the demonic side of his blood, he looked straight forward and said not a word. But there was one necessary thing that he had to say for her to figure it out:
"Follow the path of the afterlife." His bare feel made quite hefty footprints within the snow, intentional by him just to make sure that she didn't get lost behind him. One of his habitual characteristics he found was that he had a relatively fast walking pace; he walked almost everywhere that he visited, all around Fiore, and thus he had developed a walking speed that was faster than most others, but was still under no definition of power walking or running. Unusual to some.
Just as he and his mentor had begun to near the blizzard that he has spoke of, signs of it could already be occurring in the journey towards it. The wind had begun to pick up more and more with every couple of meters that the traversed in addition to the temperatures still dropping more than they already were, mostly due to the pick up activity of the wind. Sight for the both of them could be obstructed more and more as time wore on, and it would only get worse once they reached the pinnacle. And eventually, just as they had reached the point in which Deniel would refer to as the actual blizzard, the trial had begun.
His body would immediately faze away from the site of Hikari into the denseness of the snowstorm. It had become so thick that a person could most likely only see around them within a few centimeters, maybe even barely their own feet if they could concentrate hard enough. The ice was thick within the air, and the snow as abundant. Deep prints within it could be made with one measly step, due to the sheer amount of quantity that was beneath their feet. Who knew just how far above the actual ground they were? It was all buried beneath the thick sheet of ice and snow.
For Deniel himself, the top portion of his hair had immediately been covered up in a small sheet of snow, and has become so thick with the frozen liquid that it all brushed itself down in a very messy fashion, and the top of his head looked as if he were some kind of snow cone. His bare feet took hefty steps within the snow, but he hurried along. He knew the navigational path to get through his merciless blizzard as to arrive there long before Hikari did so that he may prepare her for the next stage. The key of the challenge was for her to follow within his footsteps, although he would not make that a hundred percent easy. After attaining a certain point within the blizzard, Deniel performed an action of...splitting his footprints into three. He created a miniature fork in which his normal footprints would carry on ahead in a straight line, but at a certain point of it, he created two separate, brief footprint tracks that only carried on for a few steps or so before connecting back to the first.
The first, the one that went in a straight line was obviously his boots. The second on to the left and then going back to the center was also in the shape of a combat boot, but it lacked the same shape as Deniel's regular ones. Though it seemed the size of the foot underneath was the same as Deniel's...perhaps a little bigger. And the third, well....that was probably the most unusual. Veering off to the right Hikari could see another footprint, once again about the same time as Deniel's only a little bigger, but this one made a
much deeper print into the ground, and its frontal part was cut off by a small gap between the heel. Whatever the case of the two unusual footprints, the sign Deniel was attempting to show Hikari was that there were three different footprints that she had to follow. Whichever one she chose would be either her salvation, or undoing.
He continued on a couple of meters away from the little sign that he created for her, and began the first puzzle, in which the three sets of footprints all went off in entirely separate directions. The left one belonging to the Black Devil, the middle to himself, and the right to the White Angel. The first one was when the Black Devil's boot prints had lead the correct way, the first stage of the afterlife. The other two? If she followed them she would arrive at a dead end in which she would find a corpse of a previous traveler, frozen in the barren snow after being lost for who knows how many days? Obviously it wouldn't be Deniel if she could make a fair judgment as to whether or not he had been frozen for quite some time. Following the Black Devil would lead to the third fork, in which Deniel's regular footprints had gone the correct way. And at last the White Angel. All paths conjured by the mentor were in no way straight lines; he twisted, he turned, he made sharp turns, he even sometimes backtracked just for the sake of dragging it on. The turns where necessary when applied, for getting to the Icecrown Citadel was an immensely difficult task, one only a single mortal has ever accomplished: Deniel. The journey was harsh, and the path was set to follow or die.
And at long last, having only a few minutes pass for Deniel, he reached the end of his trail to the Icecrown Citadel. Exiting the snowstorm, one would find themselves in a place of almost serene winds, there was little snowfall, the temperatures were warmer compared to the blizzard, and there was no blinding blizzard ahead of them. But what they would be met with was a frozen wooden bridge, and across the chasm that it would provide passage was one of the most enormous buildings Hikari perhaps ever laid eyes on, more than likely to rival that of her own Guild Hall's. A citadel, just as Deniel had described it. Several stories high with its own base, and possessing a multitude of towers that scraped straight up towards the sky, one of them towards the center piercing through the clouds. And to compliment for its own name: the entire citadel was covered in a thick sheet of ice. Upon reaching the citadel that perhaps he would call home...he entered so that he may prepare her for the next phase of her trial.