Perón finds himself encased and scarcely able to move. He closes his eyes again, concentrates, finds that he can still flex his muscles within the grip of the air around him, and tries to use this advantage to twist the knife. If he can move it enough, do enough damage, perhaps he can distract his opponent and force him to drop the spell . . .

If, indeed, that's how it even works here, if spells require focus to be maintained. It's the best hope he can think of, though, so he focuses all his effort on twisting the knife.