Sacrifice

SIG appeared online. And Huobai was thrilled about that. He quickly blackened his screen and wrote him a message, asking if he wanted to join and if he was okay with being on stream.

To Huobai's surprise, SIG agreed to be on the stream but he had one condition. They couldn't use voice chat and he had a friend who just joined the game and didn't know how to play, so they would help him to level up and gain experience.

"Wow, my friend agreed to join us and even brought another person. So you will be at the birth of an excellent player or a total idiot." Huobai said, making a joke to ease up the atmosphere. It wasn't like him, but he was a bit embarrassed about meeting Yitian.

"We can still hear you. We have your stream on," he read out aloud and his ears were in flames. The chat was filled with laughing emojis and some gifts.

'At least you made us laugh. Don't worry he wasn't offended.' Huobai read, this time only for himself. And he breathed out in relief that SIG wasn't upset.

'Why can't we use voice chat?' he wrote, asking. The game would be really slow and hard if they used only chatting. But given that the other guy was level one. A newbie. He said screw it and got it why.

"Let me read some of your comments before we start. OMG, you have such luck to play with SIG. I didn't know you were friends. I'm jealous of you." Huobai chuckled.

Of course, they were jealous. From what he noticed, Doom was pretty particular in what to play with. And if he wasn't satisfied with your performance, he would kick you out in the middle of a game.

No matter if he was losing or winning, he would just kick you out and block you. Making it really difficult to actually play with him twice. The only people that managed to do it were HNYG and Huobai.

"Well, guys. It was actually an accident. I was just starting when I met other new players. And those players were SIG and Doom. We didn't play together at all until recently when we met again. When I was searching for people during the New Year." he said and minimized the message window because two characters appeared next to him.

"Well, does anyone have a last question before we start?" Huobai asked and added SIG and the other player into his party.

"You were playing during the New Year celebrations? Do you have plans to join the pro team? That's why you work so hard?" Huobai read and winced when he read the question why he works so hard.

"Well, it was only for a while. But yes, I was playing. We all were. And I have ambitions to join a pro team. If anyone will want me, I will maybe join. And no, I don't work hard because of that. I-..." he stopped and contemplated for a bit.

His reason, to escape reality, wasn't that rare. But it was his medical condition and the constant worry and care from people around him. And the pity that his dream was now impossible.

That made him escape his real life and just do what he wanted while sitting down.

"I don't work hard. I just use the game and everything I do to escape the reality of the harsh life and make friends. Like many of you do…" he said in the end and laughed it off.

True, friends that didn't know him before. That didn't know he was a star basketball player, an idol of school, with friends, that would never even guess he could play games.

"So, let's start…" he used his cheerful voice and turned on his screen again.

'What do you want to do?' he wrote to the chat, waiting for SIG's answer. They were standing around for a few seconds before SIG ran off to somewhere, followed by the other person.

Just now, when Huobai was following them, he noticed the nickname and profession of the character. It was a guardian male, with a ridiculous nickname.

Huobai's English was good enough to know what it meant. KILLER_taunt.

'Was this a kid?!' Huobai chuckled to himself and then cleared his voice and started filling out the silence with meaningless talk about games and sometimes other stuff, as he usually did.

SIG stopped before a city and turned to Huobai. It wasn't a usually lively and clean city with NPCs. But it was in ruins. Buildings crashed, overgrown by plants and monsters running around them, just waiting for them to move.

SIG stood right where there was no path of monsters, letting them gain a bit of calm inside the storm.

"Let's fight a bit here. He can gain a lot of exps and maybe some rarer materials." Huobai read again and nodded.

"I agree. I don't know if you notice, but the lower level you have while fighting monsters, the drop rate for rare materials is higher for you. But that doesn't mean you can easily defeat them," he explained to the commenters while nodding. Before they started moving, Huobai took a sip of a drink and put it aside.

"Oh, crap! He has straw to put through the small hole. I thought we would finally see his face!" he read the comment and with those emojis, he could feel the disappointment.

"Sorry…" he laughed once more. Now, he was glad he streamed. Huobai relaxed himself once again. This was what he was used to. Being the center of attention, being admired, and most importantly, enjoying something he loved.

They attack the monsters together with SIG at the same time. They were both using low damage skills that left a minimal amount of HP and the guardian could finish them, having higher chances for rare materials.

The only disadvantage and basically a handicap was that they had to guard the member at a lower level. So, after the first few attempts, they established amazing teamwork.

SIG shot the monsters to almost zero HP and KILLER_taunt went to kill them. If any monster came closer to him, Huobai took care of it and froze it. Then SIG went to the frozen monster and shot it. And then the circle closed.

'Their teamwork is amazing. They work so well without basically any word.'

'Wow, I've never seen it done like this. Clap, clap…' Huobai saw the praising comment with the corner of his eyes because he had to keep attention on the screen. But he looked away for enough time for a monster to get closer.

But not to the KILLER_taunt, but close to Huobai. And it attacked.

Huobai was ready to just kill it with one spell, but when the monster launched to Huobai. A character appeared out of nowhere before him and blocked the attack. Then he dispersed into thin air.

Both Huobai and SIG were just standing there, stunned. ANd killed soon enough because they couldn't believe their eyes.

Yitian tore away his eyes from the screen and looked at Yixing.

"What the heck was that?" he asked, his mouth open.

"You told me that a guardian should guard…" Yixing shrugged, and Yitian was speechless. He just stood up and walked to the restroom, to splash some water on himself, to wake up. Because this had to be a dream.