The Thing Living in The Woods

But what were the Netskies? The Kawkaws? Several of them were just Chapter 1 callbacks that don't make as much sense in a flower shop. Any Darkner based on a plant that needs light would eventually die in Castle Town, so I assume most of them aren't. The Leaflings are probably dead leaves, but the Netskies have a pretty big plant-like tail that seems to be their true body.

After the Flowery fight, we know what the orange SOUL mode does. The only one we don't know yet is the cyan/aqua SOUL.

Out of everyone, Noelle is the one impacted by our actions in the weird route the most. Kris is a close second, but it all centers around Noelle. If anyone would have the right to condemn us for choosing to explore that path, it would be her. But no. She chose to take the dark path in a game based on the Prophecy, just like us, and even went out of her way to make sure her parents wouldn't catch her playing it so she could keep exploring it.

If she were a real person in our world, Noelle would be deep in the UTDR trenches. She'd absolutely explore the geno route, just to see what happens. Nobody is going to argue she's secretly some horrible person, yet if the roles were reversed, she's the type of player who would try put the weird route, if out of nothing more than sheer curiosity.

Its limbs are kinda rubbery, able to bend at unnatural angles. Its face is completely blank, lacking anything that really should be there. It doesn't need eyes, being designed to house a being that can see from above. Its chest rises and falls when active, even without a mouth or nose. If it needs to eat, a hole sort of rips open right where a mouth should be, sealing back up as soon as its no longer needed. It looks human, but taking a closer look, you can tell its definitely not.

I think this might be part of why the Knight looks like they do. They can move in ways no Lightner should be able to. If they're soulless, then they get treated like an object, gaining a new form and abilities in the dark, beyond what normal Lightners get. Kris can still move pretty quick and put up a decent fight without their SOUL, even if they are kinda dying.

The main question would be "how is the Knight still alive", which is fair. I'd suspect the darkness changed them somehow, filling the gap left by their SOUL and keeping them alive, but they can't exist for long in the Light World. This would also explain why, despite looking like a powerup on paper, Kris doesn't want to take that risk.

If it IS Dess under the helmet, that could also explain why we're hearing her voice in the code. Its her SOUL, the culmination of her being, calling out. The text is unused because it has no body for it to be associated with. A SOUL can't speak, or even properly interact with the world, without a vessel. Her body and mind are working as the Knight, changed by the darkness, yet lacking what makes her, her.

The "SOUL vs body" split also pairs nicely with our situation with Kris.

She used to be. She still is, mostly. But humans aren't built to fuse. Not like gems are. They're different on a fundamental level.

Fusion isn't a process meant for only one gem. Steven can bridge the gap, and being a diamond, his gem can handle a lot more than most, but there's still a small margin of error. Things don't always get put back together precisely as they were before. It's always fine, but never exact.

Under normal circumstances, this would be undetectable. When preformed repeatedly over a long period of time? With someone who has been consistantly exposed to gem stuff and healing magic from a young age? Those tiny imperfections can start to add up, little by little.