"What's making it happen?" Jesmind asked as the dragon's wings flared, and they vaulted into the sky.

"That is!" he said, nudging nose towards the collapsing pyramid. "Can't you feel it, biped? Whoever's in that thing is tearing the world apart with magic!"

Jesmind looked down as the dragon turned its tail to the pyramid and beat its wings frantically. Huge masses of Goblinoids were doing just what the dragon said, running for their lives, but many of them were dying as the land tore itself apart, sending them plunging into those pools of molten rock and to certain and painful death. She looked ahead to see the army the gods had brought doing the exact same thing, fleeing wildly, trying to outdistance the fissures that were opening in the earth and causing massive chunks of it to sink into a fiery demise. Whatever combat had taken place before this happened was completely forgotten, as human and Goblinoid fled side by side in common interest, as every living thing on the tundra below desperately tried to get away from the hellish chaos that had gripped the land.

Jesmind looked behind them, to the pyramid. Tarrin was in there, and he was fighting with Val. Their battle was so intense, so powerful, that it was tearing the earth apart. She could only look back in desperate fear and worry for her mate, trying to understand what was happening, why he was continuing to fight even though there was no chance he could win. Goddess, what was happening in there?

It was a battle between two evenly matched foes.

Tarrin sensed that early on as they continued to trade unimaginable assaults on one another, grappling in the air over the platform, but those physical actions were nothing but a metaphor to symbolize the titanic battle that was being waged between the two of them. Val was confined to his icon, but it in no way restricted his ability to battle Tarrin on every conceivable and inconceivable level of existence, fantasy, imagination, and even anti-existence. The two gods hurled such power between them that the mortals surrounding them would go mad trying to understand it, scrabbling into every possible realm for any foothold or advantage that would turn the tide of the battle in his favor. Though Tarrin was new to this kind of battle his divine status gave him all the understanding and awareness he needed, and that caused him to be able to fight Val on even terms.

And they were even. Their power, though separated by five thousand years, was equal. Totally equal. They were both creations of the Firestaff, both borne of its energies, and it had not changed its method of bestowing its gifts after five thousand years. They were mirror images of one another, with only time and experience separating them. But while Val had the advantage of experience, Tarrin had the advantage of sheer determination, possessing an absolute determination to win at any cost, no matter what. Val did not have that same maniacal zeal. He was fighting to save his own life, nothing more, and that fear of death caused him to be much more cautious. As it had served him so many times in the past, so it served him again. Tarrin's wild nature and dangerous, reckless method of fighting allowed him to throw absolutely everything at the dark god, unafraid of consequence or even continued survival, seeking to overwhelm his adversary with with sheer determination and his utter need to win at any cost.

And he could throw absolutely everything at Val. He could sense the presence of all the other gods, something that certainly seemed to distract Val, and knew that they were containing the pair of them, allowing them to fight and minimizing the damage they did to the universe. That was a good thing. Had it not been contained, muted, the raw power unleashed by them would have devastated everything within a hundred leagues, and as the battle raged on, the area of destruction would have grown wider and wider.

Knowing that their battle would not destroy the world only urged Tarrin on even more fervently, allowing him to commit himself utterly and completely to the fight, unleashing such furious assault on Val that he had been forced to literally consolidate his power and defend against his infuriated opponent. The pyramid shook and crumbled around them, shaken to its core by the power of the struggle taking place within it.

The battle taking place in the mortal realm was only a small part of what was going on, but it was a metaphor for the battle raging between the two gods. Every movement and act was merely a representation of the shifting of vast amounts of power along infinite realms of possibility, and every attack or defense was a representation of countless thrusts and assaults, parries and ripostes, taking place in those realms of possibility in a simultaneous action. It was a battle on every possible level, but a battle waged by two gods whose minds were still grounded in mortal concepts. That was why Tarrin had managed to unsettle Val with anger. Despite being a god and having such a vast mind, able to concentrate on thousands of individual things at once, he still possessed emotion , and that emotion could blind a thousand facets of the same mind as easily as they blinded just one. Emotion was the key to this battle, one facet of Tarrin's vastly expanded mind realized as he deflected an attack from Val from those countless aspects, but in the mortal realm was symbolized by a blast of utter darkness that erupted from the rod in Val's shadowy hand. Tarrin's sword slashed the darkness in half, sending it to either side of him, a mere representation of the true defensive counter that the former Were-cat had employed. The deflected attack's power was largely lost in the ether of existence, but a fragment of it, the fragments grounded in the physical world, slammed into the side of the pyramid and nearly collapsed its entire south side, but through some miracle the wall managed to hold, a testament to the skill of the lost race of people who had built it. It caused the entire pyramid to shake violently, but somehow the grand old building managed to stay up.

Emotion was the key, and also the weakness. No matter that they were gods, it was emotion that ruled their actions now. Val fought desperately out of hatred, anger and fear. His hatred for Tarrin was a tangible thing, a cancer within him, and it was facing his most hated foe that brought out his anger. And there was fear as well, fear of losing, fear of destruction, even fear of what would happen when he beat Tarrin and had to face all the gods surrounding them, worried that he would be too weak to repel an attack from them all.

Tarrin's emotions were no less powerful, but were much differently focused. His hatred for Val was intense, but it did not consume him. His greatest emotion was fear, but it was fear for others, not for himself. He had used the Firestaff to become a god to save his mate and daughter, and also to once and for all put an end to Val and the danger he represented to his family and friends. That fear for the safety of others had instilled within him a powerful determination to win, to destroy Val no matter what it took, and no matter what the cost. He fought wildly, recklessly, unafraid of loss so long as his defeat so weakened his opponent that the gods beyond could strike him down, just as Val feared, before he could mount a defense against them. For Tarrin, Val's defeat was much more important to him than his own victory, and his opponent had a very hard time protecting himself from someone that was quite willing to lose so long as he softened up his foe enough for the next assailant to win.

Besides, he knew that his victory would be his own defeat. By taking up the Firestaff and becoming a god, he was now just as much a threat and danger to the gods as Val. If he struck Val down, they would attack him just as quickly as they would have attacked Val. He knew the instant he held the Firestaff to the sky that it was a one way trip, and that his deification would be brief. He had become a god for the sole reason to destroy Val. Once Val was destroyed, there would be no more need for him, and he would not endanger the world by trying to live on.