Kael stared at the notification.
[Entering Floor 10.]
[You have been invited to a Floor of Vanitas.]
For a moment, the words did not feel real.
Not because he failed to understand them. He understood them too well. That was the problem. Floor Nine had already eaten his last Torch of Vanitas. The extra one he should have received had been swallowed with the dying climber before Kael could even touch it. There was no blue flame in his inventory now. No ward against the dark. No clever reserve hidden away in some forgotten corner of his storage. Nothing.
Vanitas without a torch did not mean difficulty.
It meant death.
