I Made a Deal with the Devil

Once an Oukese, always an Oukese!

The invincible Oukese Warmaster had fallen, just as pointlessly as he had made his ambush entrance. Even as he died, he couldn't understand that he wasn't facing the Primarchs from ten thousand years ago, but three hulking brutes who had changed their appearances and were no longer even human.

As the head in his hands dissolved, Hogg gradually unearthed the Xenos's memories. When the final gunshot outside rang out, he finally learned what had happened.

It turned out that after the Rangdan Xenos had been completely hunted down by humanity, one surviving ship had slipped away, disguised itself as a human merchant vessel, and traveled to the Ultima Segmentum, eventually settling on the T'au Planet.

The T'au's society, which should have been ripe for rebellion, and their astonishingly rapid development were both thanks to the last Rangdan Xenos. In return, they had gained a new name: the Ethereals.

Whether they were Ethereals or second-rate Ethereals, they had only themselves to blame for choosing to support the T'au. As it happened, the T'au were the tastiest, crispiest meat slices in Hogg's eyes.

With the last resistance wiped out, the three leaders sat in front of the Oukese, whose corpse had yet to grow cold, and discussed how to handle the aftermath of the campaign.

Though the successive assaults had left fewer than one in ten T'au intact, and most of the rest had been corrupted by all kinds of energy, Hogg wasn't willing to waste such valuable biomass. If even human corpses could be mixed with Promethium residue to make Corpse Starch, then these could be turned into canned meat and sold for others to eat.

The captured planets also needed to be brought under control. At the very least, they had to produce a