Supreme Harem God System

Chapter 2276: What do we get in return?

Every week.

A new Light World fell, like beads cut from a string.

Light worlds fell like beads cut from a string.

And the worst part?

The news never travelled inside the Light territory.

At least not... properly.

After all, the Light faction’s walls were not just made of barriers and fleets, they were made of fear, they were made of... rules.

They were made of... minds being watched.

Every month, world-wide memory checks continued.

People lined up in silence, children were told not to cry, families held hands while strangers looked through their thoughts.

World leaders smiled and bowed and offered their minds first, to prove loyalty. They acted proud in public, but in private, even they swallowed their anger like poison.

And so, inside Light territory, the Anomaly’s "truth" died in the throat before it could become a shout.

Outside Light territory, though?

That was an entirely different story.

Outside, it spread.

People talked, they argued, they compared recordings, they gathered details, they built a... bigger picture.

And each time another Light world vanished, another set of confessions appeared—projected in neutral plazas, on mercenary route-stations, inside trade hubs, in the skies above worlds.

Every confession carried the same core.

*Light knew.

Light allowed it.

Light... benefited.*

And the most frightening part?

Many of the broken rulers said the same thing Archon said—

"My world deserved it."

And while those words did come from fear, there was still... some level of truth behind it, truth that was confirmed through their own memories.

They were the proud supporters of Light’s system, they did the dirty work so Light could stay beautiful.

The Anomaly was not "random."

He was choosing targets that... represented the rot.

The Universe watched those confessions like people watching a slow-burning fire. They didn’t know whether to be horrified or... fascinated.

And somewhere in all those recordings, the Anomaly kept appearing.

Smiling.

Always smiling.

Like a man who never once doubted the ending.

For a while, the Light faction did not feel the damage.

At least not directly.

In Light territory, things looked stable on the surface.

Temples remained full, public prayers became normal, loyalty oaths became expected, world leaders competed to appear... more faithful than the others.

They begged Light forces to investigate them first, as if it were a privilege. And when Light forces found "supporters" of the Anomaly, the world leaders punished them publicly.

After all, they were all terrified of being labelled... impure.

So people kept quiet.

But...

Cracks do not always appear first in the middle of a city; sometimes... cracks begin at the roads.

At the gates.

At the... borders.

Because even Light worlds traded.

Even Light worlds hired mercenaries.

Even Light worlds needed routes for resources and information.

Even Light worlds had people who travelled—envoys, merchants, scouts, scholars, diplomats.

And those travellers... heard things.

A merchant would step into a neutral market and hear a rumor over the price of spirit ore. A mercenary would drink in a tavern and hear someone casually mention how a Light ruler confessed on a giant screen before being erased. A diplomat would attend a meeting and find that the room went quiet when they walked in, then the moment they left, the talk returned like a flood.

And when these travellers returned... they talked.

"A Light world fell."

"Two fell."

"No, not two. Seven."

And those whispers spread, even while everyone pretended nothing was happening.

Light caught it, of course.

How could they not, when they read memories every single month?

And the moment they caught this, they responded the way they always did.

They made... another rule.

They called it "Protection of the Mind."

The rule was simple:

*Talking about the Anomaly’s confessions gave power to the Anomaly’s war.

Speaking of it was an action against Light.

Those who stood with Light must not do it.*

And just like before, the new rule was repeated. The world leaders, the priests, even the parents repeated the rules to their children like they were bedtime stories.

And then something strange happened.

Something worse than silence.

People began... erasing their own memories.

At first, it was only a few.

A merchant who traveled outside and heard too much would return and panic. He knew the scans were coming, he knew that even if he did not speak, his mind could betray him, so he went to a mind mage, or used an artifact, anything that could... help him manipulate his own mind—

And he removed the memory.

Not the whole trip, of course, just... the parts that felt dangerous, the parts that involved the Anomaly, the parts that involved confessions, the parts that came with... doubt.

Then he returned home... *clean.*

And when he was scanned, he passed.

Of course, it wasn’t easy; memory patches were directly linked to the Anomaly, but Light understood that the core of one’s being had no relationship with the Anomaly, even if he was an Anomaly agent, it wasn’t his will and he...

He lived.

And that started a wave.

The next merchant learned from him.

Then the next.

Then the next.

Soon, it became a new normal.

Travellers returned with... empty patches in their minds.

And with that—

Something else, something far, far scarier began—

People stopped trusting their own thoughts because they couldn’t remember what they had decided to forget.

It created strange problems.

Little problems at first.

A husband forgot a promise he had made because it was made during the same trip where he erased memories. A woman forgot a face she had met and couldn’t explain why she felt fear when she saw the same person again. A trade leader erased a negotiation memory and later signed a deal that destroyed their own company because they had forgotten the warning signs.

Some forgot debts.

Some forgot insults.

Some forgot threats.

Relationships became unstable, not because the love faded, but because couples couldn’t keep a clean timeline in their minds anymore.

Trust became... a strange thing.

"How do I know you didn’t erase something important?"

"How do I know you didn’t erase something about me?"

Friends argued over events that one remembered and one didn’t, families fought because one member swore something happened and the other looked at them like they were insane.

And worst of all—

People began living like prisoners inside their own heads.

They policed their thoughts, they watched themselves think, they flinched at curiosity, they forced themselves to forget questions before the questions could become dangerous.

It wasn’t just fear of Light anymore.

It was fear of their own mind.

They lived with half-memories and patched stories, smiling in public while their private selves felt... hollow.

And still... the Anomaly continued.

Five years passed like that.

Five years of *stability.*

Five years of *loyalty.*

Five years of inspections and kneeling and... rules.

And in those same five years, more than two hundred and fifty Light-connected worlds vanished.

Of course, not all those worlds were High Level Worlds. The Anomaly didn’t target worlds because of their strength; his targets were now clear.

He targeted those who did Light’s dirty work.

And with all these erased worlds, the Anomaly’s message—no matter how much the Light tried to suppress it—

It spread.

A message that was far scarier than Seraphielle’s.

*You can kneel.

You can be scanned.

You can erase your own memories.

You can obey perfectly.

And still... you might be next.

After all, the two hundred and fifty worlds that were devoured were no different. They followed Light’s rules too, they lived under suppression too, they allowed Light to search through their memories every single month as well—

And yet—

It still happened.

So what’s stopping the Anomaly from targeting your world?

Because Light clearly wasn’t capable of stopping him.*

That truth settled into Light territory slowly, like... poison sinking into water.

At first, people denied it.

They blamed someone else, then they begged Light harder, but then...

A single question spread.

"What do we get in return?"

It began with a small, extremely small whisper, something that was instantly removed from memories the moment it began.

But...

Removing it from memories did not stop this question from spreading.

Because even after this question was removed, it reappeared.

Again, and again, and again—

So stubbornly that it was almost... scary.

And how could it even be stopped?

After all, the question held all the legitimacy; it was the most... logical question that would appear in someone’s head after all the series of events because—

What did they get?

These were the same people who were being watched, who were being inspected, who were being ruled, people who got their minds opened like books, people who were told what to think and what not to think, people who were punished for words, people who were punished for doubts, people who were punished for even remembering rumors.

And still... their worlds fell.

The world leaders felt it the hardest.

These were 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.