The ferry left the cavern, and in the place of that jagged, dark roof was thousands upon thousands of bright stars. Shimmering white lights, which clustered into dazzling white paint splotches upon a black canvas— so many stars that they seemed of one body, reaching out into infinity, a road reaching into eternity.

Sam laughed. “A sky!” he said. He hadn’t seen a sky in so, so long. Not since he was still alive. It felt so open, it felt so free. He reached his hand up, and felt a great comfort in knowing that he couldn’t reach them.

Alucard laughed too— but Sam could tell that Alucard was laughing at him, not with him.

“What’s so funny?” said Sam.

Alucard looked up, stars reflected in his glasses. “That’s no sky,” he said. “That’s just part of the Styx.”

Sam looked back up again and squinted. He noticed how the stars seemed strangely affixed in place. He headed back to the control room and stopped the ferry. When he came back, he noticed: the stars were moving ahead, a celestial procession with a myriad of marchers.

“See how it flows,” Alucard said. “It is in that river where we will find One Piece.”

Sam looked back down. It was then when he realized: he had been so focused on the sky that he hadn’t even paid attention to what was before him. The river ahead was wide— very wide. The river Cocytus sprawled into the horizon wherever he looked.

“This is a river?” said Sam. “It’s closer to an ocean. And what kind of river has a river floating above it?”

“The only humorous thing about the Divine Comedy is just how wrong it was,” Alucard said. “Smoker’s insight is limited, but he has taught me something quite valuable. The Circles of Hell are contorted in shape, each one twists and intercepts the other circles in unusual ways. And through it all are the rivers, which converge and diverge into and from each other. You may see the Styx above, but if you had a vampire’s sight like mine…” He walked to the edge of the boat and peered down. “...You would see a river of fire, just as wide as this one, below us. And we will be going through that one before we reach the Styx.”

- Ragnarust Round 2