With the Hidden Sage and Amon gone one after the other, the information they had kept sealed away became clear. Abner perceived it with ease through Insight.
This had been a long-planned ambush!
Back when the Dragon King, the Ancient God Ankewelt, had worked with the Hidden Sage to use Abner to break through Yaluolan's town concealed by Secrecy, the goddess's power had thwarted them. Afterward, the Hidden Sage realized Abner held a special place in her eyes and conceived a plan: use him as leverage to obtain the Knowledge Emperor characteristic from Yaluolan, the final piece needed to become a god.
This time, the Hidden Sage had manipulated information behind the scenes so neither Abner nor the many gods backing him would notice. Amon acted as intermediary, bringing in the Rose School and the Demoness Sect, both of which had suffered losses at Abner's hands. He also used the truth he had uncovered about the Artificial Death as payment to draw in an Angel of the Numinous Episcopate...
Then, while the battle at Indo Port kept the God of Combat and the Lord of Storms occupied with each other, the Earth Mother Goddess and the God of Knowledge and Wisdom faced off, and the goddess supposedly could not spare any attention while assimilating the God of Death's Unique, they lured Abner over with a trap that looked crude but operated on a higher level.
Amon had devised the setup after using Decryption to learn many of Abner's habits. Its success was far from guaranteed, but the odds were still sixty or seventy percent. It was worth a try, especially since Amon had nothing to lose.
If the Hidden Sage had been willing to offend Abner more deeply, and to provoke the gods behind him, there were several targets more