Kir had grown too used to not being hit in any significant capacity.
For one thing, he had the instincts to dodge thoroughly drilled into him by his mom's training. But even Darlae couldn't have anticipated that Kir would wind up battling a tree the size of a half-dozen skyscrapers put together.
After the first strike broke through his neglected defenses, those instincts saved him from the second and the third as he put distance between himself and the trunk.
Branch after branch had been growing in his direction, but they stopped as he got further away from the trunk, firing off magic-induced particle beams to sever the long growths that had tried to snare him.
Unfortunately, that meant he also lost sight of the suitcase.
Swearing, he dove faster, and had just managed to reacquire a visual on the suitcase when he saw a kilometer-long branch growing right out of the tree's root coming up to meet him.
