Chapter Eighty-Three

The aftermath of the fight left the air thick with an unsettling quietness. Clara and Ethan, still debilitated from their encounter with the abyss, found themselves in a landscape scarred by the remainders of their battle. The ground was littered with the flotsam and jetsam of the crushed chamber, and the air was overwhelming with the harsh fragrance of seared earth. The abyss was gone or at least, it showed up to be. But the faint tremor that had shaken the ground minutes earlier waited in Clara's intuition like a tingle she couldn't scratch.

Clara looked at Ethan, who was inclining on her for support. His strength was returning slowly, but his eyes betrayed the same unease she felt. The entity’s destruction should have been the end, yet something was wrong, something they could both sense but not yet define.

“We need to regroup,” Ethan said, his voice still hoarse. “We need to find Marcus and the others. There might be more going on than we realized.”

Clara nodded, helping him to hi