The moonlight above the Celestial Dominion Palace was fractured, filtered through the veined clouds like a dying god's tears. Yet inside the palace, a storm of divine intent clashed between realities. The scent of nine-colored incense burned slow and thick in the Grand Audience Hall, where Tianming sat upon the obsidian throne of Unified Realms.
Arrayed before him were the greatest of his divine consorts and generals.
Aria, the Goddess of Sacred Resonance, stood with her zither alight, the strings vibrating gently in tension.
Nihila, the Empress of Void and Stillness, watched in silence from her floating black lotus, her pale hands folded as if in prayer.
Aurum, the Golden Martial Sovereign, crackled with kinetic force beside her, his golden robe swirling with battle inscriptions.
And at the foot of the throne knelt the emissary from the Necrosymphonic Dominion—a frail man wrapped in blood-threaded white robes, whose voice echoed like a funeral chime.
"Supreme Overlord Tianming," he intoned, his face hidden behind a spiraling bone mask. "The Abyssal Maestros of our Dominance Council invite your empire to a grand performance: the Ninth Symphony of Entropic Dissonance. Participation... is mandatory."
A silence fell.
Then the hall erupted.
Aurum stepped forward. "Entropic Dissonance? That's a battle overture. You dare to name it an invitation?"
Aria's fingers plucked her zither once. A harmonic pulse swept out like a bell toll, silencing the clamor. "Let him speak. These Maestros seek not music—they seek war in rhythm."
Tianming's eyes glowed dimly, alight with inner cosmos. "We've defeated astral lords and void emperors. What makes these Maestros think their performance will end with anything but their silence?"
The emissary tilted his head. "Because this time... the audience is the multiverse itself."
A tremor rolled through the hall. Even the ambient Dao responded.
---
Later that night, in the inner sanctum of the Empire's Divine Stratagem Hall, the council gathered again in secret.
A projection of the Necrosymphonic Dominion hovered over the war-table—a realm forged from inverted harmonics and abyssal rhythms. Spires of bone-vibrato instruments rose from cities shaped like open mouths.
"Each Maestro commands an orchestra of war," Aria said, her tone ice. "They weaponize music the way cultivators wield divine laws. We cannot allow their 'performance' to reach stage two."
"And if we deny?" Nihila asked softly.
"They'll force the resonance upon our realm. That's how they conquered the Ebon Harp Realms."
Tianming raised a hand.
"There will be a counter-performance," he said. "We will strike first."
He stood. His robe—midnight with constellations woven in live starlight—shimmered.
"Prepare the Divine Symphony Engine."
Everyone froze.
"That device is untested!" Aria warned.
"It channels the will of all Divine Cultivators in the empire. If it fails—"
"It won't," Tianming interrupted. "Because I will conduct it myself."
---
The next dawn, the capital of the Dominion Empire was ablaze in motion. Divine engineers opened the sealed sanctum beneath the Imperial Conservatory. Massive crystal arrays pulsed, each embedded with sacred rhythms drawn from the Laws of Harmony and Conflict.
The Divine Symphony Engine was more than an artifact—it was a god-tier structure, forged from the remains of a slain Star-Titan whose voice once shattered realms. It could take ambient divine intent and cultivate it into battle anthems, force fields, and reality-anchoring rhythms.
Tianming walked to the conductor's dais. Lines of cultivators filled the amphitheater-like engine bay—Soundforgers, Void Composers, Martial Choristers.
He lifted his hand.
The orchestra answered.
A drumbeat of divinity echoed outward. The clouds above parted. Ethereal lines connected every fortress, cultivation field, and spirit garden across the empire.
"We respond not with silence," Tianming intoned, voice amplified across the realm.
"But with a Dominating Overture."
The Symphony of Dominion had begun.
---
Far away, within the cathedral-core of the Necrosymphonic Dominion, the First Abyssal Maestro—a woman with hollow eyes and a neck of violin strings—froze.
"He's activated the god-engine?" she whispered.
A twisted smile stretched her face.
"So the battle shall be... composed."
She drew a bow of soulhair across her own neck and began to play.
And across the Realms, reality itself began to hum.
[Chapter 14 End | Chapter 15: Prelude to the Abyssal Stage – Coming Next]
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Would you like Chapter 15 to begin immediately with the first confrontation of rhythm and force, or do you want to explore Tianming's empire reacting to the Symphony Engine's activation first (including his divine harem's responses and new upgrades)?