"In order to reach a hand down to someone, they must be BENEATH YOU! ...and I am beneath nobody."
The story of Janus is a long and twisted one. Originally an
Archon of the
Lightsworn, a brave facet of the
Prometh race, Janus was part of a group known as the Triad. He helped to protect the realms from forces of evil alongside
Uriel - The Avenger and
Geulah - The Advocate, acting as an inflitrator; able to alter his appearance and surprise the enemy.
While Uriel and Geulah reagarded Janus as a younger brother, many saw Janus as the weakest member of the Triad; a fact that Janus may have deeply resented. It was during
The Crimson Harvest, when the Lightsworn came to the Mortal Realm to protect its denizens, that Janus first began showing signs of insanity. Knowing the invading
Infernals could not be permanently killed, Janus met with the lich
Drugal and had his form modified to allow for the consumption of souls, or
Anima. When fighting the Infernals, Janus would consume their anima, permanently ending their threat and increasing his own power. However, the act of consuming so many fiendish souls only further increased his madness, as he also murdered any Lightsworn that caught him in the act.
Janus' crusade of consumption did not end with the Crimson Harvest. In 996 3A, he traveled to the fey realm of Illanterra, demanding the use of their realm-teleportation system. When he was denied, Janus destroyed the entire realm in a fit of rage, harvesting the souls of countless Harengon. Not able to hide an act of such magnitude, Janus was shortly imprisoned by his former comrades Uriel and Geulah. Binding him with golden, divine shackles, the two planned to banish Janus to an unknown realm for his crimes. However, due to a powerful chronomatic spell cast by the Archdruid Vonro Gardrim, time was reversed by one second, allowing Janus to break free and descend to the mortal realm.
As the Lightsworn were locked in combat with the forces of
Nex - The Screaming Tyrant during the
Battle of the New Dawn, Janus planned to use their weakened state to exact revenge on them, going as far as killing his former mentor,
Archon Magnus. In the chaos of the battle, Janus himself was killed, though was later revived by the
Alphacian Alex / Arcturus.
His revival bringing his madness to a critical state, Janus began believing himself to be "chosen by the Creator" to eradicate Arkos of its "mistakes" - that being mortalkind itself. Through a series of carefully planned (though convoluted) schemes, Janus was able to acquire a massive amount of primordial light energy and even more souls for consumption. After meeting the adventuring party known as the Sanctioned, he also sought to manipulate them into assisting with his goal of mortalkind's eradication. When Deacon of the Sanctioned expressed interest in helping Janus redeem himself for his evil, Janus rejected the very idea, thinking himself above such a concept.
Eventually, Janus obtained a ritual from the lich
Drugal that allowed him to become Lightbringer; an all-powerful avatar of the Light
Numina. Thanks to the souls he had collected over hundreds of years, he was also able to keep his free will. Launching an attack on
Serenia with his newfound power, Janus killed his old comrade
Uriel - The Avenger, imprisoned
Geulah - The Advocate, and began to infect the magical Weave of the universe itself, slowly killing all mortals who had access to magical abilities.
Having followed him to Serenia and into the Null itself, an access point to the Weave, Janus' machinations were finally brought to an end by the Sanctioned. Healing the infection he caused and utterly destroying his body, the Sanctioned ensured that Janus' madness would never again harm another being, though the physical and mental scars left by the insane prometh will still linger in the world for quite some time...
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