The Tattooed Emperor: Reborn Before the Apocalypse

Chapter 2: Forbidden Tattoos? Give Me Nine!

Realistically, how many people in this country even had tattoos anymore?

And out of that handful, how many actually commanded an army of their own once they awakened as Divine Tattoo Envoys?

The collapse of order. The scarcity of everything worth having. People turning on each other just to survive one more day. All of it had carved humanity's numbers down to almost nothing.

Damon had been given something no one else on earth had a second chance. But he had zero interest in playing savior for a world that would chew him up and spit him out the second it was convenient.

What he wanted what he needed was simpler and far more selfish than that: protect what was left of his people, and make sure the brothers who'd bled for him once didn't end up dying in some gutter a second time.

That didn't mean he lacked ambition. It meant he understood exactly how terrifying the enemy really was.

He'd already been betrayed once by people he trusted with his life. He wasn't in a position to gamble on trust again not when the stakes were this high.

The way he saw it, his best shot was building something untouchable, brick by brick, out of the handful of men whose loyalty he'd already proven with his own eyes in his first life. From there, he'd claw his way to the top of whatever hell the apocalypse turned the world into.

Lying back against the pillows, Damon let his gaze drift to the ceiling and started running numbers in his head specifically, which tattoos he was willing to bleed for.

If he wanted real power, real control over what came next, then more ink and darker ink was the only answer. The bigger the risk, the bigger the payoff.

Except it was never that simple.

The pain and the physical toll of a tattoo's awakening scaled directly with how much divine weight the design carried.

In his first life, he'd learned the hard way that an average person couldn't survive so much as one of the forbidden, myth-tier tattoos. Stack two moderately dangerous ones on an ordinary body, and death wasn't a risk it was a guarantee. People simply came apart from the inside.

He'd also picked up something else through years of war and near-death experience: successfully awakening a tattoo's power wasn't purely about willpower or physical conditioning.

The real deciding factor was fate itself.

Damon still didn't fully understand what that meant. Fate wasn't something you could measure or study.

But given how impossible his own rebirth was given that he was literally lying in a body he'd already died in once surely that counted for something. Surely the universe wasn't done with him yet.

His eyes sharpened, resolve settling over his face like armor.

"Fine, then," he muttered to the empty room. "Let's bet everything on it."

A few hours later, night had fully swallowed the sky.

The door banged open, and Marcus hauled in a weathered old man by the arm, practically dragging him across the threshold.

"Found him, boss. This is the guy supposedly the best tattoo artist alive. Smith Taylor."

"You absolute brute! Is this how you treat a man you're asking a favor from?"

Smith Taylor rounded on Marcus, spitting fire despite his age.

Damon waved Marcus off and crossed the room himself, reaching out to smooth the old man's rumpled collar with surprising gentleness.

"Forgive him, Mr. Taylor. He's blunt, but he means well."

"He's been dragging his feet trying to find you because I've admired your work for years. The second I woke up, you were the only name on my mind that's why he rushed. I apologize for the method, not the urgency."

"Hmph."

Smith Taylor's scowl eased, just slightly, mollified by the flattery.

"Well. If you truly understand the caliber of what I do, I suppose I can forgive the manhandling." He straightened his jacket with exaggerated dignity. "But I'll say this now my rates are not what you'd call modest."

"Money's not an issue. I only need one thing from you start the work tonight. Can you do that?"

Damon finally lifted his eyes to meet the old artist's.

Something shifted the instant their gazes locked. Even a man as well-traveled as Smith Taylor felt it a cold jolt straight through the chest, like staring into a well with no bottom. Like something down there was staring back, and it was hungry.

How does a kid this young have eyes like that?

Smith had inked royalty. He'd inked warlords, billionaires, men who'd ordered executions before breakfast. He had never once felt what he was feeling now.

In the space of a single breath, Damon's whole presence flipped gentle warmth replaced by something cold, commanding, absolute. Standing in front of him suddenly felt less like meeting a patient and more like standing in front of something ancient wearing a young man's skin.

Smith shook his head hard, physically trying to dislodge the thought, and forced his professional smile back into place.

"Alright. Which design did you have in mind, sir?"

Which one?

Damon's smile turned slow and sharp, and something in his eyes went flat and cold.

"Not one. Nine."

The number hit Smith Taylor like a slap. His expression cycled through disbelief, shock, horror, and finally settled into a kind of blank, glassy numbness.

It took him a long moment to find his voice again.

"Sir. Are you telling me you want all nine of the forbidden tattoos?"

"You may not fully grasp this, but ink isn't just decoration. In this country, tattoos are tied to something deeper fate, destiny, whatever word you want to put on it. And I promise you, the first two on that list alone have been enough to kill men far stronger than you."

"I can see you're no ordinary man. You've got the bearing of someone built for greatness genuinely, I mean that. But even so, as someone who's watched grown men die screaming from a single forbidden mark, I'm begging you stop at two."

Damon listened to every word without interrupting once. When Smith finally finished, his voice came back level and unbothered.

"I understand exactly what you're telling me. Which is why I need you to start on all nine. Tonight."

"Sir, you can't possibly"

The sentence died in Smith Taylor's throat.

Because in that instant, killing intent rolled off the young man in front of him like a physical wave thick enough to choke on, cold enough to stop his lungs mid-breath. It didn't feel like standing near a killer. It felt like standing near something that had personally ended ten thousand lives and hadn't blinked once doing it.

For one horrifying second, Smith genuinely thought he might lose control of his own body right there on the spot.

Then, just as suddenly, it was gone.

Damon hadn't said another word. He hadn't needed to. Smith Taylor understood perfectly, and something in him locked into place a focus sharper and more absolute than anything he'd felt in fifty years of holding a needle.

He had exactly one goal now: finish the job, collect his payment, and get as far away from this young man as humanly possible.

This country breeds monsters, he thought numbly, hands already moving on autopilot. Genuine, reason-defying monsters.

He repeated it to himself like a prayer, over and over, as the hours bled together.

Ten straight hours of work later, Smith Taylor finally set down his needle with a shaking hand and a breath that came out like it had been trapped in his chest the entire night.

He looked down at what he'd carved into the young man's skin, and despite the exhaustion despite the fear still sitting cold in his gut something like pride cut through it all.

It wasn't an exaggeration to call this the single greatest piece of his career.

The next morning, just as dawn broke over the horizon, the door that had stayed shut all night finally creaked open.

An old man stepped through white-haired, white-bearded, wrapped in a long black coat and crossed the room toward Damon with fast, purposeful strides.