ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

So what does instantaneous travel speed mean exactly? I noticed that when i fire distortion bolt, it does in fact have a travel speed, and sometimes enemies even dodge it, even though it says on the tooltip that it has instant travel time.

Am i missing something? my understanding of instant travel speed is that when you fire it, it will reach its destination before any action can be made by anyone, hence, it always at least hits or forces a save etc.

As far as i can tell it travels 9 tiles in 1 turn.