Zzzap vs a submarine

He steeled himself, lined up, and knifed down into the water.
The ocean boiled at his touch. Only a thin sheaf of it, barely half an inch from the energy form, turned to vapor as his energy bled off into the surrounding water. But it kept bleeding, like a gunshot wound to the gut. He hemorrhaged heat as more and more water poured in to fill the envelope of steam around him.
Zzzap willed himself even hotter, easing back on the mental hold he kept around himself. He cut through the submarine’s hull. Water bubbled around him as it flooded into the ship and hissed into steam on the molten edges. A few tubes melted, a steel shaft, and he was out the other side, his phantom skin crawling at the physical contact.
He looped down through the ocean and shot back up through the sub. This time he went straight through the engine, a huge block of hardened steel. It turned to slag at his touch, and he blasted out the top of the hull. More water seethed around him, and then he was back in the air.

Excerpt From Ex-Isle, pg 633
Peter Clines
https://books.apple.com/us/book/ex-isle/id989619017