If his Elementals are busy, he can't borrow their senses.

“I’ll take your word for it,” I grunted, four eyes darting as I tried to take in the whole scene. I’d given up five meters for nothing. It wasn’t enough to keep track of both weapons, I had to keep an eye on Carmine’s location at all times as well. But Levant was already busy—I could feel her layering protection around Ren and Nora as well as keeping the latter out of harm’s way as Keppel launched spikes of black-tipped ice at her. Levant was altering the trajectories of the projectiles and occasionally moving Nora completely out of the way while she bombarded the taken Hunter with her grenade launcher. Beyond that, part of her was elsewhere keeping my mother safe, several other parts were tied up providing air to the civilians we’d placed underground, and she was running my entire communications network. Could I afford to distract her and have her monitor Carmine for me, too? Or should I split her again, reducing her power in other areas? If any of those things should fail…

But damn it; with my Elementals so tied up, my senses had been cut down to the high single digits and I didn’t like it. I felt half-blind not being constantly aware of everything going on around me, but I couldn’t spare anyone right now. Suryasta and Vulturnus were assailing Lei Hui with a constant display of luminous power that the elder man just seemed to bear silently as he and Ren seemed to dance around one another. Whatever power Ren’s grandfather had—and he must have had quite a bit if he knew Xuan Wu style well enough to teach it—it was further enhanced by his new exoskeleton, to the point that he could just brush of a downpour of thunder and flame. All it seemed to be was a distraction to him.