"You were right," Celine said to Blanc as he stopped running next to them, "It's fascinating."
"What do you think?" Blanc asked, "Is it sturdy enough?"
"I hate to admit it," Miyanna sighed, "But you threw three boulders at it and it didn't move, how much safer can it get?"
To which both Kael and Lune nodded.
All four of them were lightly dressed now, with only Blanc remaining half-naked.
With that in mind, he picked up his bag from the floor, and as he began picking clothes, he spoke, "The question is, for how long will this path between Gardens remain sturdy?"
"You think there is a time limit?" Celine asked.
"To some extent, yes," Blanc nodded, "I think the path weakens over time, and remains that way until it gets destroyed again. But how long that takes, or how much time we have to pass, I don't know."
"I think it's safe to assume we have enough," Celine thought out loud.
"I agree," said Blanc, as he pulled a tunic on, "We act calmly and try to make no mistakes, but we need to hurry just in case."
"I don't like the sound of that," Miyanna complained.
"That's the situation," Blanc said, as he finished dressing before turning towards the four, "We still have time to not attempt this and find another way. I give you all five minutes to think on this, and if nothing changes, we move according to plan."
To which all nodded, as they got lost in thought.
As Blanc looked at the path ahead, his monologue returned.
It's dangerous.
I know. That's why I will go first.
What if I die?
Then I'll be glad I'm the one dying and not the others.
How selfless.
Shut the fuck up.
Telling yourself to shut the fuck up… Quite something.
What else is there?
To just not go? We leave the Gardens and be done with all this.
I managed a fragment of the Bloodshard. We are making progress towards our goal of getting stronger.
And if I fall into that river, I'll get ripped to shreds, Bloodshard fragment and all.
I go.
I realize daily that I am dumb.
What am I suggesting then?
We go to the Domain of Noble Blood Maroux, and we buy whatever Marks we can get our hands on. That way, we get stronger while also walking towards my goal of keeping everyone safe.
"My love," said Celine, placing a hand on Blanc's shoulder, "A decision has been made."
"What decision?" Blanc replied, turning sideways to face the four.
"We go," Celine replied, to which the rest nodded, Lune more confidently than the rest.
There's that, then.
Idiot.
As the monologue left Blanc's mind, he picked up one of the ropes and placed it inside his bag.
Celine took the over one hundred feet of rope left they had and tied one side to herself before giving Blanc the other half, which he tightly tied around his basin.
Blanc exhaled sharply, trying to gather the courage he needed.
It was nerve-racking now that it really came to it, especially now that the monologue presented options he knew he had left.
The doubts in his mind grew larger by the second. He knew he had to act now.
He turned to the others, kissed his wives on the lips and his younger sibling on their foreheads, and turned to face the rock path across the gap.
"May the Vita be with you. I love you all," he said, taking the first step across.
It held.
Another step.
It held strong.
Another, and another, and another.
He stopped.
It held beautifully so far.
"Don't look down, don't look down," he whispered to himself as he began walking, making sure to remain in the middle of the narrow path.
So far, so good.
Almost to the halfway point.
It held against the impact of boulders.
Blanc walking over it was a breeze.
Almost there.
Every step he took made him more confident in the path.
Then the temperature change hit him.
With ten steps left to the rock wall of the Garden, the coldness of the taiga scraped his skin like a whip.
The change was so sudden that it made him stop walking.
"My love, what's wrong?" Celine yelled from the corridor. "Why did you stop?"
"It's fucking cold," Blanc yelled back, "M-make sure you get dressed before crossing!"
With that, he started walking again and didn't stop until he was in front of the wall.
He searched for places he could use to grab, and once he traced a path upward, he untied the rope that was between him and Celine.
"Pull it back, prepare the next, and don't begin until I climb up, understood?" he asked, yelling.
"Yes, take care!" Celine replied as she, Miyanna, and the twins started pulling on the rope that fell inside the gap.
"Here goes nothing," Blanc muttered, as he placed his left foot into a small bump in the rock wall, and, putting a bit of weight onto it, making sure he did not slip, he crouched to build a bit of momentum and launched himself lightly towards the next spot, where a part of the wall detached earlier to rebuilt the path, leaving a decent opening, for him to catch himself with both hands.
Once he managed to get some footing, he turned his head to the side and found two cracks into which he placed his left foot and left hand comfortably, from which he managed to climb another ten feet by using small cracks as if they were a ladder.
However, in the last ten feet of the climb, the cold was slowly getting annoying, as he started shivering.
Another issue was that he had only three more footholds left to reach the top.
They would be just enough to cover the remaining ten feet, but reaching the last one would require him to launch himself slightly, taking him from above the rock path below entirely.
If he fell, he wouldn't just fall on the rock path he used to get across.
He'd plummet straight to his death inside the gap.
"Fuck it," he groaned as he reached for the next crack in the wall.
The adrenaline was slowly pumping in his body, making the cold more bearable, but more annoying at the same time.
And as he reached for the second footholding he had left, and grabbed the rock that would act as a bump, the rock detached itself, making Blanc lose his footing slightly.
A small yelp reached Blanc's ear from the other side of the gap as they watched him, thinking he would fall, but he reacted quickly, putting his hand now into the wide crack the rock made, and turned his right hand into a fist, stopping his descent.
He sharply exhaled, looking at that third foothold he had left, then at the top he had to reach.
It was about five feet away from him.
If he had a better foothold, he would have attempted to launch himself to the top directly, since he had the strength for it, but he knew it was in vain.
A loud crunch reached Blanc's ears.
"Huh?" he whispered as he looked at the top, not seeing the source of the sound.
The crunch resounded again, and a large pair of antlers emerged before a pair of large yellow eyes made eye contact with Blanc.
It was a damn moose.
"Easy there, boy," Blanc whispered, "Let's not do something dumb we would both regret."
But the moose had other ideas. With a loud bellow, he raised his two hooves right on the edge of the wall, detaching some rocks that would have made contact with Blanc if not for him managing to lunge successfully to the next foothold to the left of him.
In the next moment, not wasting a single moment after catching himself, he built the momentum required to launch himself to the top.
But just before he did so, the moose started running towards him, planning to send Blanc to his death.
He couldn't jump with the moose running towards him, and neither could he jump down, for he would fall straight into the gap.
The moose raised its hooves again and was about to crash into the ground again, but stopped as an arrow from the other side of the garden hit the rock wall, distracting the beast and turning it for a second.
This gave Blanc enough time to jump to the top, get on his feet, draw his sword, and by the time the moose turned to face where Blanc stood, he was not there.
Blanc took a large swing and let his sword fall diagonally against the moose's neck, which sent its head falling to the ground, its body crashing to the ground convulsing, and making the snow red with its blood.
The death of the moose marked Blanc's ascent onto the Moose Path, the taiga, as well as the second Silver Garden.
"What a fucking welcome this is," he sighed, as he waved that he was fine to the rest.