Not the above-water limbs — those were above the floor contact. But the vibrations in the flooded floor from Dravos’s footsteps, from the phantom limbs’ movements transferring force through the air that eventually touched the flooded surface, from every physical event in the arena that was connected to the water she was touching.

The flood was more sensitive than the dome had been.

The dome had shown her displacements — where the limbs were in space. The flood at direct palm-contact showed her force patterns — the way force moved through the entire arena, through the water on the floor, through the stone beneath it, through the air above it where the water droplets from the dome’s recent collapse were still falling back to the surface.

She built a picture.

Not visual — tactile, the information arriving through her palms in contact with the flooded floor, the fight’s entire force landscape readable through the water she was touching and producing.

Three phantom limbs above her.

She could feel their approximate positions through the force patterns they created in the air that touched the falling dome-water droplets that were touching the floor-flood that her palms were in contact with.

Not precise.

Approximate.

Approximate was enough.

She formed the water constructs around both arms — the liquid encasing her forearms from the floor’s water, rising up her arms from her palms, the water building up the limbs that had just been in contact with the floor.

She stood.

Both arms encased in water constructs that extended beyond her fists into forward-facing water masses — the water amplifying her physical strike’s impact the way the ability description had described, the construct making her forearms larger and the contact surface of any punch significantly wider.

She swung at the first approximate position.

The water-construct forearm swept through the air where the approximate position indicated a phantom limb.

Contact.

The wide water-construct surface struck the invisible limb — not the precise hit of a targeted jet but the broad sweep of a construct-amplified arm covering the approximate space, the width of the water construct compensating for the approximation’s imprecision.

The limb received the impact and Dravos felt it — the phantom construct taking a water-construct strike at close range.

He retracted it.

She swept at the second approximate position.

Contact.

Second limb retracted.

She swept at the third.

Near-miss — the approximate position slightly off, the sweep passing through the space adjacent to the limb without full contact. A partial hit — the edge of the water construct clipping the limb rather than the full sweep connecting.

The third limb stayed deployed.

It struck her right side.

She absorbed it — the water construct on her right arm intercepting some of the strike’s force by being in the path of the limb, the construct disrupted at the contact point but her body taking a reduced impact rather than the full phantom strike’s force.

She went back one step.

Dravos was at six feet.

He deployed his fourth phantom limb — all four now, the maximum, the three retracted ones redeployed along with the one that had remained active, all four above the flooded floor in different positions.

Lynara pressed both palms back to the floor.

The flood-contact position — hands on the water, the force landscape reading active, four approximate positions assembling from the force patterns.

She felt all four.

Approximate. All four approximate.

She stood again — water constructs reforming on both arms from the floor water, the constructs building up her arms as she rose.

She fired the Tidal Collapse.

Not at a single limb — at all four approximate positions simultaneously, the collapse technique pulling water back toward four separate points rather than one, the technique divided across the four positions.

Four simultaneous implosions — each one at the approximate position of one phantom limb, the collapsing water finding the limbs through the approximations and delivering implosion force to all four contact points at once.

All four limbs hit simultaneously.

All four retracted.

Dravos stumbled — the four simultaneous phantom limb impacts transmitting back through the connections to his body, four force arrivals at the junction points where the invisible constructs connected to his torso, the combined effect of four simultaneous impacts more than the stagger from any individual limb hit had been.

He went to one knee.

Lynara advanced — both arms water-construct encased, the water building further up her forearms toward her elbows, the constructs thickening as the fight’s flood provided more material than the initial deployment had.

She swung at Dravos’s visible body — not the phantom limbs, him, the physical fighter on one knee at four feet from her position.

The water-construct forearm hit his left shoulder.

Real impact — the amplified strike at close range, the water construct’s mass adding to the physical force behind the swing, the hit driving him further down from the knee position he had been trying to recover from.

He went to both knees.

He deployed two phantom limbs — the only two he could manage with the four-simultaneous-implosion’s toll still transmitting through his body’s connection to the constructs, the recovery limiting his output.

Two limbs aimed at Lynara’s arms — the specific target, the water constructs extending from her forearms that had been the instruments of the last two strikes.

Both limbs grabbed for the water constructs simultaneously.

The water constructs absorbed the grips — the invisible limbs closing around water rather than around Lynara’s physical arms, the constructs providing a buffer between the phantom grips and the limbs they were trying to hold.

She felt both grips through the water.

She pulled water away from the grip points — the constructs releasing at the phantom grip locations, the water flowing off the sections of her forearms the invisible limbs were holding, the grip finding nothing to hold as the water retreated.

Both phantom grips closed on empty water.

The constructs reformed immediately around the grip points from outside the phantom hold — the water flowing back around the invisible limbs’ hands from outside, encasing the phantom grip itself in water rather than just Lynara’s arms.

The invisible limbs were now inside the water constructs.

Encased in the construct water from outside.

She collapsed the constructs inward.

The water on both arms pulling inward toward her arms from outside — the Tidal Collapse at close range, point-blank, the implosion happening around the invisible limbs that had been encased by the constructs.

Both phantom limbs received the implosion from outside simultaneously.

Both retracted immediately — the force arriving from all sides at once, the implosion technique at point-blank range producing more than the limbs’ connection could manage without transmitting the full force back to Dravos.

He went flat — from both knees to the floor, the dual point-blank implosion transmissions arriving at his torso’s connection points with more force than the four-simultaneous had been, the concentrated close-range version carrying more per limb than the divided-across-four version had.

Both hands on the stone.

Face toward the flooded floor.