Torrens was somewhat surprised at first that only one sorcerer was sent against him, but as soon as he felt a magical force attempt to drain his power he knew that they had thought this one through. The sorcerer would find that not all of Torrens' energy could be extracted at once (which is probably just as well, considering how much damage it could do), but he could sharply increase the rate of heat loss from Torrens. The consequences of this on the surroundings was that no liquid water or oil existed near him after less than a second (save for that in the sorcerer), wind hotter than that of a blast furnace rushed through the side streets, and in seconds the stone ground and nearby walls would start melting. This rapid drain was a serious concern for Torrens, as if this continued for too many seconds he would be too weak to fight.

At point blank, Torrens' first move was to go for the face of his opponent, grabbing it with his hand. Normally, this move was fatal against creatures of flesh, but when the sorcerer pulled Torrens' hand away from his face Torrens was shocked to find that there was not so much as a mark where there should have been a horribly melted face. But Torrens was far from a one trick demon and he was very quick on his feet. Perceiving his foe's total immunity to heat, that he had no way to win a simple physical contest in a few seconds, and the desperation of the situation, Torrens shoved him palm up to the priest's chest and channeled dozens of megajoules of thermal energy into the separating millimeters of air in an imperceptible fraction of time.

This energy represented the chemical energy from a whole bag of coal burned in a furnace. Coal has an energy density eight times greater than that of gunpowder, although coal normally releases this energy very slowly. Torrens, however, had no chemical limitations on how quickly he could release that energy. As such, the energy which had originally been in a bag of coal was now released in a manner akin to a detonating barrel of gunpowder, or perhaps an even more violent explosive, at point blank to a human. While the explosion would also harm himself, he should fare much better than the creature of flesh before him. And if by some miracle the explosion didn't tear the priest in half, or rupture his internal organs (and, considering this is a priest, miracles aren't out of the question), then at least he should be stunned long enough to give Torrens some time to find the upper hand.