Asphyxiated

"How is this possible? Do we have a pyromaniac on the loose or something?" spoke a firefighter, his voice muffled by the mask he was wearing.

Recently, many buildings and homes had suddenly caught on fire and not small fires, the fires had all started with an explosion, strong as if the building had been filled with gas to the brim before hand.

Despite people supposedly being in each of these buildings prior to the explosion and fire, no traces of their bodies had ever been found, even if the explosion was strong and that fire could eliminate any traces, the fact that after so many instances of it happening, nothing had yet to be found was puzzling to even the most cartesian of people.

A bit further from the authorities, a group of three people that definitely didn't seem like they should be here were gathered, they seemed just as confused and puzzled as anyone present.

"This is weird, it keeps leaving traces behind but impossible to track it down, what kind of spirit is this?" muttered one of them as they tried to grasp something that normal people couldn't see.

"It seems like its energy is intrinsically linked to the physical gas it leaves behind, dilutating it as the gas dissipate into the air as well" spoke another one, one with sunglasses on despite the lack of sun.

"However, this one is quite fresh, there's a trail, look" spoke the third one, pointing at a difficult trail to notice.

The three of them didn't need words and immediately started following this lead, they had never managed to arrive fast enough after one of its exploits to get a clear residue of its energy.

"It leaves energy wherever it goes but don't be mistaken, this spirit seems to be powerful" the one with sunglasses said, he didn't specify it but he believed that it leaked its energy everywhere because it was overflowing from it, this spirit may be on the verge of ranking up with all of the people it killed.

The three of them ran around at a fast pace, fast enough to put athletes to shame.

Arriving at the end of the trail, they saw that it had already made its way into another building, a prison.

"Let's infiltrate it" spoke the one with sunglasses, he was the leader so he took the decision of immediately going after the spirit, usually they would make use of their connections to get the permissions and empty the area but seeing what this spirit had previously done, he didn't want to waste any time.

His worries were warranted as everyone inside the prison had already been knocked out due to the gas, the three of them could resist it but these people would die if they stayed like that.

"The two of you, carry them all outside, into the yard not outside the fences, they are still prisonners, get it?" he uttered, the other seemed a bit worried but nodded nonetheless.

Finding where the spirit was with the whole place filled with gas and thus its energy should have been difficult but the man with sunglasses was able to feel the place where it was the most condensed, he ran throught the halls and ended up in a basement-like area with pipes covering the walls, the area was so filled with gas that the surroundings appeared distorted.

From the far end of a hallway, he saw a man with a gas mask on running for his life but before he could do anything, from the wall to the man's right, the spirit appeared, phasing through the wall without any difficulty, it pointed one of its clawed fingers at the man and he fell down, unmoving.

The spirit then turned its attention to the man with sunglasses.

The spirit was of a dark grey in appearance, appearing to be translucent and made of gas itself, it had nothing below its hips and floated around, its fingers were claws and its face possessed no features at all, normally spirit had something to do with fears and legends or were the remnants of a person but this thing exuded none of it, when the man with sunglasses looked at its face, he felt nothing, this thing was a type of spirit he had never seen or heard of before.

The spirit put its right hand forward as of to grasp something, the man felt an enormous pressure trying to invade his lungs but he was able to repel the attack, causing the spirit to tilt its head to the side, it had seemingly never encountered someone capable of fighting back.

The man got into a fighting position and spoke to the spirit.

"Spirit, I am an exorcist, the name's John, who are you?" he asked, trying to check if his earlier feeling was correct.

In response, the spirit only did a gesture as if it was inhaling something, a strange sight as it had no mouth and then spat it out, sending a condensed bullet of gas and energy at the exorcist, which he managed to avoid easily.

However, upon completing his dodge, he noticed that the spirit had disappeared from its position, John looked to his left and punched right through the wall.

'Did I miss it?' he thought as he had been certain that he had punched right were the energy was, a punched to his face told him that he had evaluated the distance and the position correctly but that he failed to hit it nonetheless.

Even when coated with spiritual energy, the strike had went right through the spirit.

'I see, the gas and its energy aren't interwined completely, it can split them apart, if I miss the energy, it won't do any damage to it' he quickly realised as he took his distances from the spirit.

It was capable of ranged attacks but the punch he had just received had made the exorcist choose to deal with them instead of its close combat capabilities.

The spirit phased through the environment, shooting out attacks of condensed gas and energy as well as trying to get close to the exorcist, swiping at him and trying to punch him.

The exorcist was forced to constantly battle the monster's gas and energy as it tried to wrap around him at every occasion.

Suddenly, instead of attacking again, the spirit looked up at the ceiling, looking around as if looking for something, it had realised that its preys were being moved away from its grasp, it turned to the exorcist and brought the claws in a position as if it was about to snap.

It was too late when the exorcist realised what this meant and the spirit snapped its fingers or rather its claws, creating a spark and turning the whole building into a bomb.

John, who was the closest to the center of it was completely disintegrated, no amount of spiritual energy could save him from that, despite how much further they were, the other two exorcists didn't escape te vicious explosion, having both aspects of a normal explosion and that of one made of spirit energy, they couldn't block both of such explosions and were killed as soon as it reached them.

The spirit floated up, arriving on the surface where no more prison existed, the debris had been sent a long while away, crashing into the environment, it floated to the few survivors of the explosion, people who had been carried outside and had also manged to avoid having any rubble crush them.

The spirit killed them one by one before floating away once more, these exorcists characters seemed that they would cause some problems for it but it wasn't worried, it simply focused an amassing more power.

Venerers are sometime subjected to the strict laws of certain worlds and was thus given the appearance and abilities of the creatures that were the sole to inhabit it, in this case, this world knew no monsters and only had a few spirits wich weren't numerous enough to be known globally.

Still, a venerer, whatever its shape or the world it is in, will always remain a venerer.