Although Ethan didn't stop moving his legs, he wasn't running away from the troll mage, instead, he was keeping a certain distance from Toragan as he circled around the troll mage.
Toragan still couldn't figure out what Ethan was doing by running around him, but that didn't mean that he would just stop and stare at Ethan trying to figure out the answer. By trying his best to predict Ethan's movements and also with his ability to keep the control of the earth elements so that he wouldn't need to repeat the chants every time he wanted to summon more earth spikes, Toragan was genuinely giving Ethan quite a hard time in the fight.
However, just like Matthew who could feel the slight vibrations near his feet the moment an earth spike was about to protrude out from the ground, Ethan was also doing the same thing and put at least 80% of his focus on his legs so that he would be able to detect the vibrations without fail.
