A nasty patron that one!

Azrael's ominous words still echoed in Ken's mind as he stood up from the corpse. He tightened his grip on the artifact chain, drawing strength from its icy links. With a thought, he absorbed it fully into his soul once more.

No more cowering.

A grin touched Ken's lips. Within, a new resolve was rising. His targets lay ahead, but first, he needed to adapt to survive in the Underground.

Going back up isn’t an option. Not the way I am now.

Glancing at the body, he pondered his next move. Food would be crucial. “Why not use it for bait?” He mused aloud. Learning and adapting - that was key in this new environment.

Yeah, why not?

Explore, learn, adapt.

Ken left the grim clearing, entering the dense jungle beyond. Immediately, he was stunned by the difference from his initial arrival. Colossal fungal trees reached skyward, bioluminescent caps and tendrils illuminating the eternal gloom.

A thick mossy carpet cushioned his steps between jagged black rocks. Heavy, sweet aromas saturated the air. Spongy orange growths pulsed gently on massive trunks, curtains of glowing lace fungus drifting like ghostly beards.

Sapphire mushrooms released spores in his wake, their bioluminescence a spectacle. Ken stared in wonder at the strange beauty of this alien forest. Survival was paramount, but perhaps in adapting, he could also begin to understand this bizarre new home.

Standing beneath the towering fungal trees, Ken focused inward. He activated the SpiritShifter, instantly sliding out of phase with the physical realm.

Blinking, the monochrome astral plane came into focus. Solid objects were pitch black while living things shimmered white against the dark.

Looking down, Ken saw his own soul glowing beneath translucent flesh. A pale radiance against the inky backdrop.

Swiftly, Ken began to run through the shadowy realm, his spirit gliding smoothly along. He gazed around in wonder, observing glittering souls swirling freely through the air like scattered gemstones. Plants and creatures alike shone as pale jewels against the inky backdrop.

But one diminutive impish being stalked his left, clinging annoyingly. About a foot or two tall with frail skinny limbs and an oversized head.

I’ll deal with him later.

As Ken launched himself from the ground, making a spinning pirouette, he felt strangely light on his feet. Jumping, he found himself easily sailing higher than should be possible. Gravity seemed diminished rather than absent. However, as he rose among the swirling spirits, an uncomfortable tightness gripped Ken's chest. Without an atmosphere to oxygenate his blood, physical endurance had its limits here.

Touching back to the fungal forest floor, Ken felt slightly cold vibrations coursing through his bare feet, compensating for the absent textures of the dark matter.

He then innately understood - the black substance could interact with white spirits. The astral plane's contrast allowed the physical and ethereal to interact. The black voids were not a mere absence but had substance spirits could act upon at will. Like dark mirrors, the dark matter reflected, sustained, and anchored luminous essences. Allowing spirits fluid motion while preventing drift into oblivion.

Also, the dark matter is an invisible extra layer that exists both atop and within the physical world, yet detached from its rules. Overlapping yet detached. It’s as if the astral plane is closer to be another dimension of reality, more so than a dimension of space-time.

Yet for him, it was a bit different, since the SpiritShifter allowed Ken to invert his physical and spiritual forms between realms.

When he shifted, his physical body went to the astral plane, while his spirit manifested in the physical realm, existing bare of flesh. And that his spirit followed his form's position, regardless of realm.

When he parted his lips and inhaled, no gases filled his expanding lungs. The cold void brought no scents to his nose either. Sensory input remained oddly muted in this foreign environment. Tasting it yielded no flavors, only strange metallic tingling on his tongue.

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I knew that. Still, I wanted to try the sensation.

With newfound urgency, Ken shifted back to the physical realm. Color and solidity rushed back in. Gratefully dragging air into starved lungs for a few moments. He shifted several more times, getting a feel for traveling between planes at will. He smiled whilst he flickered.

He then shifted back.

Running, as he flipped and turned his body through graceful maneuvers, he noticed a disquieting silence. No rustle of his clothes or rush of displaced air met his ears. Sound itself seemed nonexistent there.

Gazing around revealed no variations in temperature or even hints of ethereal breezes that may have stirred the perpetual dusk. The weather itself was an alien concept separate from the spirits that inhabited this plane.

Periodically, Ken shifted back to inhale deeply of the material realm before returning, fascinated by the astral's peculiar nature and its divisions from the mundane world.

Curiosity took hold as Ken reached out a hand toward a massive tree trunk. Willing it to be, his fingers sank deep into the void-like substance without resistance. No texture met his senses, only an odd numbness where flesh ended and the astral began.

He withdrew unharmed.

This means I can physically interact with the astral realm when inverted however I like. If I wanted to touch anything in it, I could, if not, then I would just go through it unhindered, Ken realized. Meanwhile, my disembodied soul in the physical plane can't touch nor be touched, yet can perceive surroundings.

That's why I felt pain mentally when inverted during the attack - my soul was directly sensing the physical realm.

Ken continued pondering as he walked onward. This is also why the wolf had not passed through the solid ground, yet could move unhindered through solid objects of the material realm in spectral form.

How can I know that? Ken wondered. Could it be an attribute of the Meta-Object to grant me a full understating of its essence after I possess it?

Touch, taste, and sound seemed meaningless concepts here. Only sight and a strange heightened intuition remained. Ken fleetingly pondered the exotic laws governing this place, so divergent from physical rules. But for now, unraveling its monochrome workings fascinated him.

Then he stopped walking as he shifted to the physical realm.

The SpiritShifter's power opened up new possibilities for exploration, evasion, and stealth. The finest skill set a hunter could only ever dream to have now lay in his grasp. With practice, Ken could master this ghostly art of shifting to use to his ends and needs.

Luckily, I know just the mentor, Ken grinned mischievously, glancing left. Someone quite experienced in being invisible and detached from the physical.

But wait! I want to try something first! Ken thought. The wolf only knew this monochrome sight its whole life. So What if...

Ken shifted to the astral realm.

With his then-shining white eyes, Ken tried visualizing the vivid colors of the physical realm. He concentrated on attuning his spirit to more than just the astral plane's stark black and white.

Gradually, hues began to bleed through. Blurry at first, then sharpened. The black voids took on familiar earthy tones - browns, greens, blues…

Ken was then able to see the astral realm overlaid with the material world's colors.

The radiant spirits still glowed pure white, now layered with their forms' true colors. The spaces between swirled with accurate hues. Ken could identify each plant and ground formation. It was disorienting yet wondrous to see both realms at once - spirit and matter seemingly merged.

With growing excitement, Ken realized he could train this ability. The possibilities thrilled him.

For now, he simply admired the riot of color against the backdrop of deeper truths. The physical gained a new dimension through the lens of the astral. Ken relished his first steps between worlds.

However after his wonder subsided, he began to perceive the horrors of that place.

Carefully, as a ghostly observer, he wandered through the perilous Underground, the seemingly endless expanse of flat wilderness. Azrael was right. This was a land where death lurked behind every corner and within every shadow.

Ken cautiously navigated through the ominous jungle, wary of the myriad threats that lurked within its poisonous greenery. Strange trees with blackened bark and strong branches loomed overhead, their leaves covered in venomous spikes ready to pierce flesh.

Underfoot, the spongy ground nearly gave way at each step, concealing vicious spike pits and burrowing insects waiting to invade any footfall. Foul-smelling fungi clung to the trees, their toxins seeping into the air while their tendrils crept to colonize any living tissue.

Around that area, with every breath, Ken risked inhaling clouds of toxic fungal spores that could rapidly decay his lungs. I am lucky to be in this form. He delicately passed through thick vines dangling everywhere, avoiding their stinging hairs that injected tissue-melting venom.

Lining the jungle floor, fluorescent mosses and mushrooms gave off an eerie glow, luring prey towards concealed creatures camouflaged within the underbrush.

Suddenly Ken stopped to watch as wriggling worms and millipedes swarmed over the exposed paws of a panther-like creature. The vermin swiftly invaded the flesh, greedily eating and breeding within the wounds.

The unlucky beast howled in agony, trying futilely to shake off the burrowing parasites. Within a couple of minutes, it succumbed, collapsing as the voracious swarm consumed it from the inside out.

Its prone body became a grotesque feast for the teeming invertebrates. They tunneled deep into the corpse, voraciously devouring and reproducing, riddling the carcass with their writhing masses.

Within a couple of minutes more, bloated and sated, the engorged worms and millipedes abandoned the remains to seek fresh prey.

Ken moved again, warily passing through leaves and stems all around that looked like even light contact could leak acid sap capable of blistering flesh. Patches of scarlet moss colonized fallen trees, devouring the rotting wood and leaving behind only bone fragments of past victims. This jungle seethed with lethal organisms wherever Ken looked, each eager to exploit any misstep.

One lapse in caution will allow the environment's endless perils to crush me.