Right now Lina was focusing the computing power for changing
colour and shape all into changing position, preventing Tatsuya from
getting a grip on her real location. And without target coordinates, he
was unable to cast magic. Magic which required coordinates based on
determination from visual information was as good as disabled once
the target was no longer in sight. And the difference between 'Parade'
and an illusion was that the false position carried over even into the
dimension of information.
For magic to take effect, the magic sequence must be projected upon
the target's Eidos. For example, to execute a file on a computer, the
path of the directory where the file is located must be specified and an
execution command must be carried out, but since specifying the path
every time is laboursome a shortcut is often used. If the shortcut is
changed to instead specify a path leading to an inexistant dummy file,
then despite carrying out the same procedure as before, rather than
executing the actual file an error will occur.
Applying this principle to the magic process, in most cases the visual
information is the shortcut icon, and within it is the auditory and
temperature tactile information. If the visual information is disrupted
due to an illusion the magic will not trigger, yet if the illusion and true
body are overlapping the sequence can still reach the Eidos through
the coordinate information most of the time. In this case, despite a
delay the magic will function as normal.
Even if the illusion is in a different place, it's still possible to take the
association between the illusion and true body as a key and attempt to
locate the position of the true body. But if the coordinates are faked
and a dummy is present in the dimension of information, the magic
formula released taking the information from the five senses as a
shortcut acts instead towards the dummy, the result of which is
'nothing happened'.
This is the system of the anti-magic 'Parade'.
—Thus in order to break through 'Parade',
—it's necessary to either locate the body between the time when the
old illusion breaks down and a new illusion is created,
—or disregard the five senses to find the coordinates of the body
directly in the dimension of information.
The former was currently not going so well. To make matters worse,
Lina's magic activation was blindingly fast. Her activation speed
surpassed that of even Miyuki. Not to mention, she would have
especially practiced this particular magic to death. The speed at which
she reactivated the magic was utterly monstrous.
For Tatsuya, the latter method was a possibility. Being under constant
physical attack, however, the majority of his perception was in the
material realm, and shifting into the immaterial would be a
considerable gamble.
(—There's no choice.)
As she pulled out the fifth dagger, Tatsuya decided. Unable to find the
body before a new illusion sprang up, nor able to locate his target's
Eidos in the dimension of information, he settled for the third option.
He took out a small cylindrical can from the pocket of his jacket.
And threw it lightly upwards.
For a split second, a confused expression floated on Lina's face, yet
upon recognising what the 'can' was, her eyes widened.
It was a miniature canister grenade.
"Je—"
Jesus, was probably the word she was going for. But Lina didn't have
the chance to finish. Wasting not the time to utter even that short
word, she threw up an objective barrier.
(Fixed Deceleration.)
On the other hand, Tatsuya Flash Casted a magic for constantly
decelerating the movement speed of objects. If he had tried creating a
weak barrier with his virtual magic area, it would have been
impossible for him to completely block out his own canister grenade
(a grenade specialised for throwing out shrapnel).