When we reached the upstairs apartment, the door was wide open and the lights were on.
But my heart suddenly clenched. I had a bad feeling.
Dad froze as well, then rushed inside in long strides.
The apartment was a complete mess.
It looked like there had been a fight.
But there wasn't a single person in sight.
Grandpa, mother, and Little Nian Bai were all gone. Even the food on the table had been knocked onto the floor.
Anger rose within me. It had to be them!
That Longinus had mentioned Anthony earlier, but Anthony hadn't been with him. Anthony must have brought people here and abducted them.
Grandpa and Little Nian Bai were ordinary people. Mom might have some abilities, but she was nowhere near strong enough to fight those people from the Holy See.
This was the Holy See's retaliation against us.
A hundred years ago, in Tibet, I had dealt the Holy See a vicious slap across the face. Now father had taken two Holy Relics from them. Those two incidents had thoroughly enraged the Holy See, so they had sent people to Great Xia to retaliate against us.
I hadn't expected Little Nian Bai to fall into the Holy See's hands just like that. It seemed I hadn't been able to change this outcome after all.
"It's fine. Don't panic. They just want those two Holy Relics back." Seeing how distraught I was, father gently patted my back.
Then he said, "At worst, we'll give them back when the time comes."
He was right. If their goal was those two Holy Relics, then we could return them as long as they released our people.
And if their only goal was to recover the Holy Relics, they wouldn't harm mother and the others before getting them