Supreme Harem God System-Chapter 2277: The situation is… worse.

The world leaders felt it the hardest.

These were the beings who once stood at the pinnacle, beings who ruled an entire world, beings who held so much strength that they could decide another’s fate with a wave of their hand, beings who were... feared, respected, and loved by millions.

And now?

Now they smiled while strangers read their memories every month.

They bowed while Light officers judged their thoughts.

Sure, even before, they bowed to beings of Light every time they appeared. They even kowtowed out of respect and fear.

But Light never visited them often; it was a... once-in-a-decade experience... something the leaders could easily swallow.

But now?

They came every single month, and the world leaders... they begged for their approval like servants begging a master for scraps.

And in return for suffering through all this humiliation, of constantly burying their pride, of constantly kowtowing and bootlicking the entities of Light, they got...

Nothing.

No shield that stopped devouring, no reinforcement fleet that arrived in time, no miracle, no protection.

Only rules.

Only pressure.

Only the constant, cliché, and useless reminder that ’Faith was protection.’

Protection?

Protection from what?

The worlds were still dying—worlds that had been faithful, just like them. The people, especially the world leaders, knew that well.

That the worlds that were devoured had done everything, the constant memory checks, suppression, and humiliation every single month before being devoured.

And with that, uncertainty began.

Then, in their desperation, in their... rebellious thoughts, people began noticing something else.

The worlds that were... not in the Light faction were fine.

They argued, yes.

They fought, yes.

They panicked at rumors, yes.

But they were not being devoured, at all.

And neither were they being hunted for thoughts, or erasing their minds to survive monthly scans.

They lived... freely.

They lived with freedom while Light worlds lived with "holy order" and suffered at the same time.

And the more Light worlds suffered, the uglier that comparison became.

It created a new kind of anger.

It wasn’t intense enough to push for a rebellion—not yet—it was... a quiet anger that sat behind people’s eyes.

An anger that... made people smile less.

An anger that made world leaders stare longer at the sky when they were alone.

An anger that whispered—

We are being punished for loyalty.

And at the center of all this pressure, like a hand slowly tightening around a throat—

Was one constant thing:

The Anomaly’s smile.

Every time he appeared in a confession clip, he smiled.

Every time he spoke, he smiled.

Even when his words didn’t reach Light territory, he smiled like he had won anyway.

The Light-borns told themselves not to react.

They told themselves it meant nothing.

They told themselves he was bluffing.

They told themselves he had no control.

But time kept passing.

Worlds kept falling.

Minds kept breaking.

And cracks kept widening.

And somewhere, deep inside Light territory, the question stopped being whispered and started becoming something worse.

Not a question.

A thought.

A dangerous thought.

A thought that was constantly being erased from memories but continued to return every single time.

If Light cannot protect us... then what are we obeying them for?

And the thought only became stronger, even after many were erased for thinking it and not wiping it away.

And how could it not?

After all, people could erase memories, they could erase rumors, they could erase names, but they couldn’t erase the reality of the empty spaces in the void where worlds used to be.

They couldn’t erase the way trade routes were disappearing.

They couldn’t erase the growing list of missing allies.

They couldn’t erase the fear that one day, the next world devoured would be theirs.

They couldn’t erase the fact that every time the Universe trembled, it meant another one of their allies had disappeared.

And with all that—

They couldn’t erase the feeling that something was building.

Something heavy.

Something... overdue.

Like a storm trapped behind a dam.

Something that was going to burst.

And when it did—

It wouldn’t be a small crack.

It would be...

A collapse.

...

Light sensed it.

Everything that had been happening, the building pressure, the silent storm that was brewing despite them suppressing it with everything they had, and the possible consequences.

They knew it all.

And their reaction...

It wasn’t good.

The Temple of Light was never meant to feel small, but these past few weeks, it felt... different.

Especially today.

Its ceiling, its floor, its pillars—everything was still the same, everything held the same holy majesty it always held, but...

The silence here was... suffocating.

Lord Light stood at the foot of the dais, his head slightly bowed.

Across from him, on her throne, sat Seraphielle.

The Infinity of Light did not move or speak, but the light around her, which was normally calm, steady, and warm...

It flickered.

Like it was unstable.

And that itself made Lord Light shiver.

After all, others may not recognize it, but he, who had been with her from the beginning of time, knew—

Lady Seraphielle was holding herself back, to a very, very dangerous extent.

Lord Light inhaled once, steeling his nerves, then he stepped forward and looked at her.

"Lady Seraphielle."

He called quietly.

"The situation is... worse."

The air around the Light of Infinity tightened.

"Explain."

She commanded in a tone that made Lord Light flinch, but he couldn’t stop, not when everything felt like it was falling apart.

After a short pause and a gulp, he reported—

"People... have begun doubting Light."

He spoke with hesitation.

Seraphielle did not react to those words, but that only made it worse for Lord Light. He felt like he was standing in front of a bomb that would explode any time now.

And to make it worse—

"Continue."

Seraphielle ordered him to continue, and he...

He honestly had nothing to say.

After all, the only way to make people trust them was to defeat the Anomaly—

No, even if they couldn’t defeat the Anomaly, at the very least, they needed to stop his attacks, they needed to protect their worlds from his attacks, but...

That seemed... impossible.

"Anomaly’s attacks have been continuous. He has been devouring without stop. We have tried to do everything we can to stop him.

We have placed Light-born elites on high-risk worlds, we rotated them constantly, making it so the Anomaly can never track their movements, we have increased patrol density, we layered relics, we have created artifacts that would alert us the moment the space around them is cut, but..."

"But?"

Seraphielle raised an eyebrow, a pillar of the temple’s light cracking. Once again, the temple was reflecting her emotions.

Lord Light ignored the crack; he just continued—

"But nothing we do matters.

Our reinforcements... they can never sense him. He just appears, strikes, devours, and vanishes. When his target worlds are manned by our elites, those elites vanish first—be it Primordials, Transcendents, or Eternals—they all disappear within moments, and together with them—

The world follows.

Patrol density, constant rotations, none of it matters.

When he attacks, he directly breaks the connection of the targeted world from the rest of the Universe, making any relics or artifacts useless as well.

It is as if... he has a perfect way to counter us.

And as long as he doesn’t face you...

He cannot be stopped."

CRACK

The moment Lord Light said that word, a second crack appeared on another pillar. This one was far bigger and deeper than the others.

After all, his words meant one thing—

If they wanted to stop the Anomaly—

Seraphielle needed to act like a lowly guard. She needed to move from one world to another, waiting for the Anomaly, all this without even knowing if he would attack or not. She would basically become a dog set free, chasing after the Anomaly while the entire Universe watched.

It was...

Humiliating.

Lord Light knew that as well—

This was also the reason he never once proposed this idea. After all, he still cherished his life. So he quickly moved on—

"The problem is simple.

The Anomaly defeated Auren. He destroyed the strongest sword we had placed in front of the Universe."

Seraphielle’s eyes dimmed for a breath.

It wasn’t grief. Seraphielle was a being older than time itself; she didn’t feel ’grief’ from death. What she was feeling was... something colder.

Lord Light lowered his gaze and—

"If even Auren fell, no ordinary force can be trusted to stall him.

Armies are only... decoration.

Brave decoration.

But still decoration.

They cannot be used."

For a moment, the place went silent. Then, Lord Light continued—

"So we tried what we have been doing all this while.

We tried to erase information.

All the doubts, suspicions, and questions were silenced publicly.

Your speech succeeded in that.

People stopped speaking."

"But that backfired."

Seraphielle spoke.

"Yes, it increased uncertainty and filled people with resentment. Memory scans became... heavy; they became burdensome to people.

I thought of reducing them, I thought of using them on select few—those who feel... suspicious.

But..."

"It won’t work when the enemy is someone like Anomaly."

Seraphielle spoke again, and Lord Light nodded with a heavy look on his face.

"That is correct.

The Anomaly does not need the corrupted. He just needs access. He can appear before the most loyal man, touch and twist his memories, and leave.

The man remains loyal.

He believes he is loyal.

He... feels loyal.

But whenever Anomaly wants, he would turn into an Agent, so memory scans became a necessity.

On every single person, since no one—not even the most loyal—could be trusted."