Ghost blocks created due to constantly ticking procedure?

I've got a flashlight item in my mod. It places custom invisible light-emitting blocks every tick in a line (based on player line of sight).

I want them to immediately expire when the player turns away, but setting a procedure to despawn them after a tick when they're placed makes ghost blocks almost all the time.

I can't think of any other way to fix this. /fill won't recognize the ghost blocks. Making the light blocks despawn on update tick doesn't fix the issue either.

Can someone help me out here?

2023.3, 1.20.1