神へと挑む

[occultnine]

So I was watching the trailer for the soon to be released game "Devil Survivor 2", and there was one statement I was wanting some opinions on.

悪魔と契り　神へと挑む　７日間

The only thing that's somewhat confusing to me is the combination of へ and と. Would this mean something like a challenge directed towards God, or maybe even a challenge to get to God, or what?

[Psy]

Second one. へと basically allows you to express motion without actually having to use verbs like 行く/来る: 太郎君は学校へと急いだ, for example, could be said instead of saying 太郎君は急いで学校へ行った。 That's all there is to it, really!

[occultnine]

Thank you Psy. I wouldn't neccessarily have problems with へと in every case. If I saw your example sentence it would have made sense, it just seemed a little weird here.

[Psy]

Aye, I hear you. Sometimes it isn't the grammar, but rather the word usage that will throw you off. In this case the English word "challenge" doesn't line up directly with the Japanese 挑む. Have a look at two definitions:

1 こちらから戦い•けんかなどをしかける。挑戦する。「論争を—•む」「決闘を—•む」
2 ある対象に立ち向かっていく。「処女峰に—•む」「新記録に—•む」

I find the when something doesn't quite click, the first place to look toward is a J/J dictionary.