I stared, mouth agape. The girls were close to me but of the two, I felt that

  Vespera was the one holding me tight, squeezing herself against my arm. Elyra was struggling to maintain an illusion of calm. It lasted longer than I thought as I read the slew of System messages, but eventually she too broke down and moved closer to me, clutching my arm even tighter than the demon.

  The System messages continued.

  Delivering rewards…

  The notification blinked. I expected more, but instead it lingered there without doing anything. Something was obviously wrong. Why was the System taking so long to give me the rewards for keeping the Oath? Speaking of, were rewards a common thing with Oaths? If so, it was quite the exploitable feature, but I doubted it was so easy. There was something else at play here.

  “What’s happening?” Elyra asked. For the first time since I met her, her voice was trembling.

  Vespera pointed at the air in front of us. “Are you seeing this too?”

  “The message?” I asked.

  I thought I was the only one who could see it.

  “Does it say delivering rewards to you too?” I asked.

  They nodded.

  “We can all see it!” Vespera’s breathing was so quick I feared she was going to pass out. “The System hasn’t spoken to us like this in millennia?”

  “I am unsure,” Elyra replied. Speaking slowly, she added. “I do not remember. But I think you are correct.”

  The notification was still blinking, so I asked: “you didn’t have s System when I met you, then?”

  “We did, but it was just sensations and feelings,” Vespera said. “Nothing like the one you got, spacer boy.” she added.

  I saw her look up at the notification again, eyes wide and unblinking as if she feared it would vanish on her. She dug her face into the flesh of my shoulder, never looking away from the blinking window. She was trembling.

  “That is so,” Elyra said. She gripped my hand. “Only the Great Races see the System like this…”

  I decided to ask the question that was on my mind out loud. “What are the Great Races?”

  “I…” Elyra began. “Again, I am unsure. All I know is that both I and Vespera were part of one, long ago. As our System broke down…”

  “…we must have lost the privilege,” Vespera snapped. “Side effect of being imprisoned for apparently, more than fifteen thousand years!”

  “I wonder if it was us who fell from the System’s grace, or if it was our Race that did.” Elyra mused. Her face was calm, but there were tear trails on her soft cheeks.

  “What about Oaths?” I asked, trying to change the subject. “All this is happening because I fulfilled my Oath to you.”

  “Oaths are strange,” Elyra began…

  Vespera nodded. “…but they shouldn’t behave like this. I don’t know for sure, of course, but it felt…”

  “…Special,” I finished. “Like the bond between us.”

  They shifted, but did not let go of me. We kept looking at the window in front of us, in silence, feeling each other’s heat. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, it blinked and changed.

  Insufficient energy to deliver full rewards.

  Switching to growth-oriented approach.

  Vespera Nightguard’s race upgraded to Great Race. Evolution from [Demon] attempted and failed due to insufficient energy.

  Elyra Nightguard’s race upgraded to Great Race. Evolution from [Angel] attempted and failed due to insufficient energy.

  Calculating Sol Nightguard’s rewards…

  The window froze again, blinking without changing. The three of us all looked at it while holding our breaths, hearing the hammering of the hears in our chests. I felt the girls shiver, then realized that I too was trembling in anticipation. Sweat was beading my forehead as my mind spun a mile a minute. What was the System going to do with me?

  What has been sacrificed cannot be given back. It has been used to restore part of the System…

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  I felt the breath catch in my throat. I wanted to kick something, to scream in frustration. I felt cheated. I did not deserve to be punished for this!

  But then I looked to my right and to my left. Elyra and Vespera were still desperately clinging to me like I was their only lifeline. I felt the bond between us, stronger than ever.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “It was all worth it. I accept my fate.”

  Negative.

  Analyzing situation…

  Do you trust your bonded companions, Sol Nightguard?

  “Of course I do.”

  Switching focus from combat to utility and survivability.

  Awarding new class: [Bound to the Fallen]

  You fell, and you found kindred spirits who had fallen longer and harder than even you. Instead of stepping over them, you chose to lend a hand. Instead of abandoning them, you chose to remain. Instead of abusing their gifts, you chose to pay them back with all that you had.

  +30 Vit, +25 Str per level.

  Unique ability to hide your bond from prying eyes.

  The message window hung in the air. Nobody dared to move, until I finally dismissed it. The tension melted away from my body all at once, and I found myself almost falling on my back. In fact, that’s what I just did. I let gravity pull me down and I landed with my back against the ground, taking deep gulps of air.

  The girls remained sitting, still too stunned to move. When they finally broke down crying, I decided that perhaps I should get up, but they beat me to it and joined me instead. We simply stayed like that, on the rough dirt and rubble deep inside the hole I dug in the ground, for a very long time. There was only the sound of our breaths, and the warmth of our bodies.

  Eventually their soft sobs quieted down, and their breathing evened out.

  “Great Races…” Vespera. “Spacer boy, you really did come into our life like a bright comet.”

  I smiled. “Comets stay for a short time, and then leave forever.”

  “Do not leave us,” Elyra said.

  “I won’t.”

  ???

  I spent some time wondering how the bond between us three worked now that we were all Great Races, before finally giving up. I had no idea how things were supposed to work in a normal situation, and it was very clear that mine wasn’t a normal situation at all. There was no use speculating.

  It turned out that Elyra and Vespera also got the [Bound to the Fallen] class, but it worked very differently for them than it did for me. They had no stats, no skills, nothing other than simple levels in their main class and the vague knowledge that they could do things. While both at level 1, they were far from defenseless.

  Snapping her fingers, Vespera summoned a ball of black energy. “Chaos, darkness and latent power.”

  Elyra copied her motion, and a ball of dazzling crystal, similar to her glass wings, appeared. “Order, light and energy.”

  Both manifestations were captivating in their own way, and I almost got lost in the transcendent beauty of the energy they emanated.

  “We will need to experiment,” Elyra said. “To see what our new powers look like. For now they do not seem too dissimilar to what they used to be.”

  Vespera laughed. “Which means she has no idea in heaven! Or in hell perhaps?” she hummed, scratching her chin in thought.

  Elyra smiled. “That is so, yes. Sol, how do you feel?”

  “Still weak,” I said.

  “Don’t worry, spacer boy!” Vespera said, getting up and pulling me to my feet. “Just one level and you’ll see. There’s plenty of fodder outside, we should be able to level you up in no time.”

  “Do you mean to say, perhaps,” Elyra began. “That you feel what I feel from the bond?”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “You’ll see, spacer boy. We have more experience with the System than you do, but even then it’s just a hunch. No use giving you false hope.”

  She winked, and I got lost in her deep red eyes. That, and I had to force myself to look at her eyes and not at her naked body.

  “Ah,” she suddenly blushed, and I felt a swirl of emotions through the bond as she realized that she was naked.

  She was… shy. How cute. It almost made me want to tease her, even though I had never been one to tease a girl. Perhaps it was the bond, letting me know that it was safe to do it with her, or perhaps I really was beginning to become a new man. Regardless, I chose to refrain, at least for the moment.

  “Here,” Elyra offered her jacket.

  It was a strange kind of fabric, almost like transparent plastic, but at least it gave the impression of modesty. As soon as she put it on, Vespera approached the hole leading up towards the surface of the pile of rubble, beginning to climb. She stopped moments after, looking back at me with a teasing smile on her face.

  “You go first, Elyra. I wouldn’t want Sol looking at me from odd angles while I’m dressed in a transparent jacket and nothing else, you know.”

  I wasn’t looking at her, or at least I was definitely trying my best. Seeing my face, her teasing smile widened.

  Elyra, on the other hand, blushed. “O-of course. I will assess the situation outside.”

  She climbed. I followed, and Vespera was last. We stopped when Elyra managed to catch a glimpse of the surface.

  “There are a few monsters, but I think we can handle them.”

  I nodded and resumed climbing. Vespera stopped me by pulling on my calf. “What’s up?” I asked.

  “By us, she meant us two. Not you. You’re staying safe in the hole, alright?” She took a step, overtaking me, and I saw that she was blushing furiously. “I guess I am going to have to give spacer boy a show after all.”

  Before I could reply, she shoved me out of the way and climbed up, pushing Elyra out of the hole and following her. I could feel her playful energy through the bond as I looked away before she could flash her whole bottom half at me when she climbed past and… was that disappointment? Did she really hope I’d try to sneak a peek?

  The moment they breached through the surface, however, they both immediately switched to battle mode. The bond was almost utterly silent as their minds sharpened in concentration and they took a stance. Pressing their backs against each other, they swept the room with their gazes.

  Vespera nodded, and Elyra summoned a ball of crystalline energy above her right palm. That’s when I realized that they were using the bond to communicate! They were almost too quick for me to follow, sharing information and targeting the monsters. Elyra shot lasers of deadly light from her ball of energy, while Vespera shaped her own darkness into wicked claws and torn any monster that got too close to shreds.

  You have defeated a level 13 [Skitterpede].

  You have defeated a level 11 [Skitterpede].

  You have defeated a level 18 [Skitterpede].

  You have defeated a level 9 [Skitterpede].

  You have defeated a level 10 [Skitterpede].

  You have defeated a level 13 [Skitterpede].

  It went on and on, until the room was finally completely clean. Then, as the battle wound down, we all received the same notification.

  Class level up!

  [Bound to the Fallen] 1 → 2

  My version also included an extra line.

  +30 Vit, +25 Str

  Theirs didn’t. Vespera cursed. “Wait, that’s it? No skills, nothing? By all the heavens!”