"Run for the exit!"

Leon's voice reverberated in everyone's ears as they ran. They had steadily backed away towards the tunnel to the second room when they were pushed back by the fourteen goblins' advance before and now this situation was not even comparable to what had happened a minute ago.

The sheer number of goblins visible to the eyes alone would drown a person three times over and there was still sound coming from the back of the goblin horde. The decision was as simple as it could be, it was to run out of the dungeon so they ran.

They were now in the first tunnel, after they passed through this there came the first room and then the exit. The tunnel was a narrow place so only one person could pass through it comfortably so Jasmine was the one to take the lead when leading out.

If something attacked from the front Jasper didn't have anything to fight back and Darrick and Leon were watching their back. They were the ones to take the most attacks and do most of the stalling until everyone escaped.

"Goblins ahead!" Jasmine shouted out as they were now almost at the end of the tunnel. When Darrick turned back to see, lots of goblins were trying to push through one another in a single-person path as a result the goblins were stuck.

"Can you guys take care of them or do we need to come to the front?" Darrick asked as he was preparing a half-assed force bolt spell to throw at their pursuers. It didn't matter if it worked or not, in the heat of the moment that sounded like the most logical thing to do.

"No, we can take them. There are only three goblins ahead, the small ones at that. What about the ones behind us?" Jasper asked as he sped up ahead with his sword raised to cut the incoming goblins. Their escape depended on how fast they could kill the three and run afterwards,

The two goblins would have felled to the sword instantly if only there wasn't a third goblin so Darrick blasted a force bolt at the pursuers, then pulled the dagger out of his abdominal wound and stabbed the third goblin exactly between its eyes, the other two goblins were taken out in second slash by the twins and they ran past the corpses.

"My shield is going break if I take the goblin dagger throw any longer. We need to get out of here quickly, they are gaining on us!" Leon said as he put more force on his legs to sprint faster than they already were.

"I know! But I fucking can't, not with this hole in my stomach! What the hell is the healer doing rather than healing a dying guy," Darrick raged as he ran with his hands on the wound trying to minimize the bleeding as much as he could.

They were almost out of the tunnel but the goblin wave was dangerously close. Even if they get out of the tunnel and enter the first room they are not out of danger yet. Crossing the distance of the whole first room without any accident was nearly impossible.

We absolutely can't cross the 10-meter-wide room without being surrounded by the goblins. The death will be horrendous with that many goblins. Think! Think! Think!

He thought and came up with an answer. The answer is mostly likely possible to pull off but not without any bodily harm but that line of thinking was for afterwards when they survive. If the idea didn't work then they were dead anyway.

"Jasper, you better heal me to the best of my condition otherwise I will beat you to a pulp."

"What!?" Jaspers audible confusion was in everyone else's face, they didn't understand why Darrick said that. It was abrupt, out of nowhere and not too much related to the current circumstances, maybe it was but nobody stopped to question whatever it was except Darrick himself.

Darrick skidded to a halt as soon as he was out of the tunnel. Leon who was the only one behind him also ran past him with the momentum he was running and when they turned to look back to see what happened, Darrick was showing his back towards them.

You are a rare artifact so don't disappoint me by giving those goblin bastards a few burns here and there. I fucking hope you can burn the first few to block the tunnel.

Darrick was hoping the artifact he pulled out could do anything about the situation. It was a calculated risk, if the first few goblins died and blocked the tunnel the group would have a bit more time to escape than now so Darrick placed his finger on its trigger.

Unlike the Fulminar, Firebreath had an actual trigger to invoke it. When Darrick made the Fulminar he somehow forgot to put one of the most important parts, the trigger and Fulminar was still somehow completely functional. It was somehow throwing attacks just through a thought, although Darrick himself couldn't utilize it fully.

Darrick squeezed the trigger, he felt a tug at his soul, exactly the part where mana was revolving around and somewhere else, a pull at an unknown location. He knew it doing something to his body but couldn't pinpoint what it was amidst whatever else was happening to his soul.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Oh shit! Now that I can sense my soul I can accurately see how my mana is being drained from me to fuel the artifact. It's sucking in a lot of mana. Wait, my mana is almost empty! Shit, it's bottomed out! What is it draining? That's not my mana source! What is it? Fuck!

The quick observation turned to panic on top of the already present panic. The artifact was draining something and Darrick didn't know what and most certainly didn't have the luxury to check what it was either so he just pushed through it until the artifact stopped draining.

Darrick pointed the flame-spewing part towards the tunnel. A small spark was released from the Fire breath. It didn't shoot out like a bullet from a gun to pierce the goblins in a straight line, all it did was float towards the ground slowly like a feather.

Before Darrick could lament the fate he was in for now after standing face to face with a goblin horde, a little something turned big. As the mote of fire touched the ground it rose in an explosion.

BOOM!

The shockwave from the explosion was so strong it blasted Darrick off the ground and slammed him to the Main Dungeon doorway. As he fell to the ground from where he was standing he already couldn't make out what he was seeing in front of him.

Everything was blurry to him except a burning tunnel which looked like a bright blob of light. The door he was leaning his back to opened as it sensed a human being in front of it, so now Darrick was completely laid.

His consciousness was slipping away as he saw his friends come up to him and shout something to each other, or maybe they were talking to him. He couldn't know. Everything after that was just a blank as he completely lost consciousness.

***

"How the hell am I still alive after that?" Darrick asked his friends as he turned his head to look at them.

"Don't move." The healer of the party ordered as moving may interfere with the healing process.

"Yeah. Whatever the fuck that happened there was absolutely ridiculous to even think about."

Everyone silently nodded to that. There was no denying it, their attempt at a relatively safer dungeon turned out to be a disaster and now they were out of dungeons mostly safe from the threat of goblins.

"Where are we right now and who carried me here?" Darrick asked as he sat in his place.

"We are just a few hundred meters outside the dungeon and it was Leon who carried you here," said Jasmine as she was fiddling with Fire breath.

The place where they were present right now was not a place Darrick had seen before. The path to the dungeon from the Astoria didn't have scenery like this in its surroundings, they may be hundreds of meters away from the dungeon but not in the correct direction.

"After your crazy stunt, we all escaped without any problems. I think all of the goblins in the tunnel died and the goblins in the second room didn't have any guts to pass through the burning pathway," She said as she tossed the Fire breath towards Darrick.

"Okay, I never expected it to make that level of explosion just because I emptied my mana reserves. Eh, whatever. It achieved what I hoped it would so why complain, right?" Said Darrick as dismissively as he could even with the severity of the situation back then.

"It was not just your mana you spent, you used almost a third of your life force in that attack. If you had spent any more life force than that then you would have visibly started aging and your regeneration would have failed to keep you alive," Jasper commented from the place he was resting after healing Darrick.

"What!?" Leon was surprised and Jasmine nodded like her doubts were confirmed to be true.

"What's life force?" But Darrick himself asked a question he deemed to be very important, disregarding the other's surprise over the situation like it was a very natural thing to do.

"How did you spend the life force when you don't even know what it is? In your situation most would either kill themselves by overspending their life force or die to the goblins because they couldn't utilize their life force. And here you are doing both in balance. Good, very good."

Leon's question was ignored and the praise was nothing considering the life-and-death situation they were in but listening to everyone's tone of voice when they were talking it didn't feel like all that happened a while ago. The voices were calm and collected without a stutter as natural as everyday talk.

"I had to do something about it otherwise we wouldn't have survived. I don't think it's that big of a price for the life of four people," Darrick said cheerfully with pride in saving four people but the people he saved were acting a bit mechanical after what he said and couldn't meet his as they were facing downwards whenever he glanced at them.

Before Darrick could question their weird behaviour he was answered to his earlier question by Jasper.

"Life force is proof of your existence as a being. Every living being has a varying degree of life force. From birth, it keeps increasing and at the age of around 35 it starts decreasing, that is in normal peoples."

"Some have different methods to increase it artificially but us mages can increase it by our magical achievement of advancing in tiers. And you who is a Tier 1 mage spent a big chunk of his lifespan and healing factor."

"And that sums up the most I could disclose about the life force to you and all that you need to know currently."

Is he hinting there is more to it than what meets the eye? Is it relevant to me? I'm not sure, but I should try looking into it. Somehow.

Darrick was mostly healed from all the injuries and burns. None of his bones were broken even though he was slammed to the door and no burns were serious enough to leave a mark. Jasper was healing the wounds others had taken in the fight earlier.

"If that explosion didn't have a particular direction I would have become ashes. You would have had to scoop up my ashes to pay some respect to me for my sacrifice. Well, it didn't happen. The artifact knew what I wanted from it and I was thrown by just the residual shockwaves. Isn't that awesome?" Darrick's eyes were twinkling as he talked.

Darrick never knew he was such an adrenal junkie, or maybe he wasn't. He didn't have any recollection of enjoying such a dangerous situation, this seemed like a side effect of transmigration.

"Yeah, I agree. It was awesome. I definitely would have done it if I had such an artifact with a massive firepower but no! They neve-"

"Shh! Can you hear the people talking there?" Leon's word was cut off by Darrick's whisper.