Atals Chapter 2 - Ancient Ruins (Patreon)

First, if Atlas wants to guarantee its position in the United States, it must involve arms, and over the decades, Atlas has been one of the biggest weapon manufacturers in the entire United States. 

In the year 1995, ATLAS Corporation completed the complete acquisition of the newly merged Lockheed Martin Corporation which became the most valuable subsidiary of the ATLAS Corporation. 

Due to the influence that the Nerona-Barthomeloi name carried in the United States, the Federal Government didn't intervene as much as one would predict. With the merger complete, one could say that the influence of the ATLAS was almost unparalleled, with all of the investments and other things.

Another thing that attracted wide investments from the Atlas Corporation was the budding social networks. Atlas owned 65% of Twitter Inc. and another 40% of Facebook, planning to increase its shares in both of them due to their future influence and potential. 

At the same time, they were not intervening much in their development or functioning because they were growing well; with the financial and technological support of the ATLAS Corporation, they were growing at tremendous speed, and soon enough, they would hit worth of over 1 billion. 

Aside from that, Imu Nerona also increased the research and development of relatively cheap individual equipment that could be widely used.

Saying the fact that he was the richest person in the world wasn't really a false statement.

One of the reasons why he had such good relationships with the Federal government was due to several factors.

One of the most notable ones was that, in the eyes of the federal government, it was a "hardworking" company that helped the military deal with difficult incidents and actively paid taxes, especially inheritance tax.

He was not aging for more than a hundred and fifty years, so every few decades, he faked his death, and every time he did so, he paid a lot of money in taxes. Yes, he could have successfully avoided and paid nothing just by setting up some fund or something like the rest of the rich and powerful...

But for him, this was another form of acceptable corruption because he was aware that the Federal government knew that the Nerona-Barthomeloi Family was paying the Inheritance Tax by their own will as they could have very easily avoided doing so.

***

In the cold, damp, and invisible underground space, you can clearly hear the sound of water droplets falling on the stone bricks. The place seemed to be very old, very wet, and there was the stench of old air like it hadn't been opened in centuries or perhaps even millennia.

"Tap...tap, tap!"

However, the footsteps of humans approaching from far away broke the tranquility here because together with them came a lot of modern technology and things, and soon enough, the entire underground space was being turned into one enormous military fortress combined with a research center.

Light also came here with humans, illuminating the entire underground space. Saying that the place was enormous would be a serious understatement of the situation of how big the place actually was.

It is flat on all sides, almost the size of two standard football fields, about fifteen meters high, and extremely spacious.

The ceiling, walls, and passages are all made of granite bricks with moss growing between the gaps, and the load-bearing granite pillars require three adults to hold them together.

To the left and right here, and at the end opposite the entrance and exit passage, are numerous "door frames" with a length, width, and height of fourteen meters.

In the center, a small square that looked like a sacrificial platform was located, and several giant statues with vague grotesque appearances, which seemed to be deliberately wrapped in soil, stood on the all around the platform.

The U.S. Army Soldiers from the United States Army Rangers of the 75th Airborne Ranger Regiment led by Captain Jack Mitchell were the first to break out of the passage.

The soldiers quickly dispersed, relying on stone pillars as shelters, and relying on the vision provided by shoulder lamps to advance steadily, with the soldiers belonging to the ATLAS Corporation following closely behind.

Soon, a group of soldiers completed the investigation and confirmed that everything was normal here and there was no danger for the time being.

Immediately afterward, a large number of people poured into this underground space, opened their accompanying equipment boxes, and began to set up high-power lighting equipment, as well as some professional measurement and research instruments.

"The callings of the deep..."

Imu Nerona-Barthomeloi strolled inside, observing several runes carved into the stone walls, all creating together collective image of something that he didn't properly understood. But the one that that caught his attention was the skull that was part of the wall...

Like it was melted into the wall, but at the same time, it was bone...

It wasn't artificially made or anything...

Although the U.S. troops were also on alert, they were more confused.

"It should be somewhere here..."

HUNK and Vector were standing next to their boss, their hands on their weapons, as everyone looked rather nervous in this situation. Nobody really knew what they were searching for at this place; they only knew that they found some pretty old ruins and that there was something very valuable deep here.

The U.S. Rangers knew even less because they were here mostly to add legitimacy and another layer of protection to the ATLAS that was operating deep within the Amazon rainforest in case something went wrong with the Brazilian government.

Most of the ATLAS Soldiers were actually former members of the United States Army and Military complex because that was the primary recruitment playground for the ATLAS Corporation.

The U.S. Military had the most complex training systems and produced soldiers of the highest quality; if it were turned into a percentage, then approximately 70% of ATLAS Corporation soldiers were Americans, in fact.

Only approximately 30% were from other countries, mostly from Great Britain and France; some of the older generation was from the now-defunct Soviet Union, and some were from Japan and some other countries.

However, ATLAS only recruited the best of the best. 

'These are the R'lyehian Runes... Ya na kadishtu nilgh'ri stell'bsna Nyogtha, K'yarnak phlegethor l'ebumna syha'h n'ghft, Ya hai kadishtu ep r'luh-eeh Nyogtha eeh, s'uhn-ngh athg li'hee orr'e syha'h.'

R'lyehian was described as sounding strange and guttural, and is supposedly impossible for the human mouth to speak or pronounce. Humans have still tried and tried again to transcribe the language, leading to consonant clusters that sound relatively foreign to the English ear.

Imu Nerona has studied the language for several decades, from the first moment he learned about its existence. This was probably the greatest shock he received after his transmigration to this world because the existence of the R'lyehian language suggested that there were 'They' somewhere out there.

'I knew nothing at all, I petitioned Nyogtha, We shared our thoughts beside the darkest pit,I know now the dark wisdom Nyogtha imparts, This dark pledge I seal with my immortal soul.'

'They' were most dangerous and represented the enigmatic, cold, deep Cosmos, where even the darkest horrors could be hiding in plain sight. Something that rather terrified him, because the anything related to them was courting death.

As he received the poem or something in his mind, suddenly he heard sound of some mechanisms moving. 

"Sir. The Doors are opening..."