Empty all along

"The solution"

After seeing his kingdom almos fall to shreds, the king decided to do a little experiment that he had in the back of his mind for a long time.

The project was to basically "contain" the infection by creating a new type of "bug",using the substance known as "void" and another one known as "soul". The soul was used by some bugs  to fight the infection with "spells",  some other bugs that had a more "hermit" life style like snails decided to mix the two Void and Soul, these bugs were called shamans and were hidden inmediatly from oyher people so that way only the royal one's could access that kind of power.

Other bugs decided to create "totems" filled with the substance and were willing to help the king

The king had ordered these bugs to research the substance of void and try to mix them to create a perfect mixture that he would use to buil something "Hollow".

the bugs shortly made that wish true but at the time of giving their results to the king the leader of the group sugested something, that all the bugs of the city were empowered by soul, they had some test subjects that actually worked and were fighting back the infection quite effectively. But there were also other that didn't quite make it they were turned into this "blob" on the ground or sky as some of them would fill up with air and float like a balloon .

The king horrified at what he was seeing as his people were turning into almost lifeless blobs struggling to keep themselves alive and breathing shut down the project inmediatly.

The bugs that had proposed the idea were confused as they thought the king had gone insane. they said things like "the king has no idea what he is doing" they didn't understand that the king didn't want more weight in his back because he already felt terrible at the idea of what he was going to do. but the bugs went mad and resorted to obtain success in other methods.

 At first the king ordered the best blacksmiths to create a mould, with the shape of a thin being with four long lims attached to the torso. and so they did what the king had ordered them to do, at the very day that those moulds got to him a new grup of guards started appearing all across the kingdom.

one of their most interesting features was that they would not react if touched or disturbed, but at the very first sight of infection these guards would spring up into action and throw their "Nail" at the threat, when the treat was defeated they would pick up the remains and bring them to the palace for further research.

alternatively when the guard would be defeated their armor stayed there and their pitch black bodies turned into a puddle and it would start to be "absorbed" to the ground to return to were they came from.

But as fast as the king had the upper hand the infection had something planned also a new type of enemy, at first it seemed as a normal fly but with a solid skull and "bat-like" wings that it used to cover their infection so the guards couldn't see them. And when giving the chance the "Fly" would open his wings to reveal a glowing bulb of orange infection, when the guards saw the infection it was already to late the fly had already taken flight, and when contacting something they would explote in a violent mixture of void and infection.

The king had no other choice but to do the most dredded, to justify his actions the king repeated himself these words: ...No cost too great , even to his end he repeated them