Genesis

Genesis (ジェネシス) is a game adaptation-original character introduced in Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization. He is known as the «Black Swordsman» (黒の剣士) by the players of Sword Art: Origin. It was later revealed that he is a famous hacker known as the «God of Cheats» (ゴッド オブ チート).

Appearance
Genesis has slicked back red hair and yellow eyes. He wields a large black greatsword.

Personality
Genesis is known to get a wild, frenzied look when he is fixated on combat with a berserker fighting style to match. He has no regard for Non-Player Characters (NPCs), considering them unworthy of his attention. He is also shown to have poor sportsmanship, as he enjoys stealing hard-earned kills from other high-level players and gloating over his victories in the faces of those he stole them from, yet became furious when Kirito and his friends defeated a boss he had missed.

Background
Genesis was a trance player, a virtual reality player who enhanced his senses in virtual reality through his liberal usage of «digital drugs», programs replicating the effects of various drugs on the brain through patterns of visual and auditory frequencies. To avoid being ejected from the AmuSphere, he illegally altered its player protection protocols to prevent it from detecting his abnormal brain wave patterns. Using the digital drugs, he could sharply increase his status, allowing him to engage any enemy in battle. However, long term use of this cheat harms his body and mind, as shown when he was forced to surrender while fighting Kirito and Asuna due to feeling intense pain after the drug's effects expired.

Hollow Realization
While Kirito and Argo were attempting to clear an obstacle hindering their progress through the Oldrobe Forest, Genesis was surrounded by other players, who angrily complained to him for stealing their kills, but he only mocked the players before departing.

Later, when Kirito, Asuna, Sinon, and Yuuki were gathering ingredients in the field for cooking, Genesis was occupied fighting against a monster. Though his movements were fluid and natural, they appeared to be forced, as if he was not putting all of his effort into them.

After rumors of Kirito saving an NPC from being sacrificed to a monster by other players spread, Genesis decided to see Kirito for himself, but was disappointed when the latter failed to meet his expectations. When challenged to a duel during their encounter, Genesis rejected the request, deeming Kirito to be not worth the effort, and dismissively wished him good luck with his reputation, before leaving.

Later, in the field, Genesis was fighting a dragon when Kirito's group encountered him. As Genesis was being overwhelmed, he was offered assistance by Klein, but Genesis bluntly rejected the offer and ordered them not to intervene. At that moment he activated his digital drug through the in-game menu, gaining a boost in energy. After loudly boasting of his newfound strength, he successfully unleashed a series of devastating, reckless counterattacks on the dragon, defeating it. Gloating over his victory, he belittled Kirito for requiring assistance to beat the boss earlier. Ignoring Klein's outraged retort, Genesis declared himself to be a class above the others, and warned Kirito he would soon demonstrate that the latter was not as special as he believed, before departing the area.

While Kirito, Asuna, and Yuuki were escorting Premiere to a place potentially related to her quest, Genesis was angrily harassed by several players for thieving their kills. Dismissing their complaints and skills, Genesis slowly grew impatient with their escalating condemnations and challenged them to prove their ability to stop him. At one of the players' accusation that he was unaware of who he was dealing with, Genesis lost his temper and drew his sword, declaring that people like them had no place in the world and thus threatened to annihilate them. As he disappointedly watched the other players leave rather than fight him, he saw Kirito observing the entire incident. Noticing Premiere nearby, Genesis mockingly accused Kirito of using her to roleplay as the hero, and exited the location.

While traversing the Jeweled Peak Lakes, Genesis defeated a monster that he believed to be the Area Boss, and thus quickly spread the word of his deed. Upon meeting Kirito in the Town of Beginnings shortly thereafter, he bragged of his accomplishment, slighting Kirito's circle of friends and the other clearing guilds in the process. Attributing the lack of the next area opening to closed beta restrictions, he casually instructed Kirito to focus on completing quests for the NPCs.

Genesis' glory was short-lived, however, as he soon learned that the enemy he had fought was a decoy, while the real boss was dispatched by Kirito's group. Angered by this, Genesis approached Kirito in town to validate the news, voicing his disbelief at the confirmation and at Kirito's motivation for continuing the game. When Agil explained they received a different result because of their different intentions, Genesis denounced their beliefs and proclaimed his view that only the strong were meant to rule in the virtual world, declaring that they would soon come to understand this, before leaving in rage.

While cursing the developers for creating such plot twists, as well as Kirito and his friends for surviving the boss fight, Genesis encountered the Other Goddess wandering the streets. Initially mistaking her for Premiere, Genesis wondered why Kirito's group spent a large amount of their time with an NPC like her, suspecting they were aware of something about her that was beyond his knowledge, much like with the boss.

Sometime later, Genesis secretly spied on Kirito's group as they hacked into an administrator console in the Kurjiez Desert. From this, he discovered that the Cardinal System had activated the Ground Quest, Sword Art: Origin's Grand Quest which was still in development, and altered it to enforce the creation and destruction of Aincrad. Excited by the rare opportunity to destroy an entire virtual world, Genesis decided to start the quest himself and see Ainground burn to ashes.

Not long afterwards, Genesis found the location of the fifth Sacred Stone and claimed it with the aid of the Other Goddess, whom he named Tia. When Kirito and Premiere arrived at the dungeon and searched fruitlessly for the stone, Genesis revealed his presence and possession of the stone, mocking Kirito for his inability to understand what had transpired, before unveiling his control of the Other Goddess. Declaring that they had been working on the same quest, Genesis offered Kirito to join forces with him and finish the quest together. When Kirito protested and tried to warn him of the consequences, Genesis disclosed he was well aware of them. He also divulged his method of learning about them, as well as his motives for completing the quest. After one last taunt, he left the dungeon, ordering the Other Goddess to follow him.

While Kirito and the others were determining how to remove a barrier in the Kurjiez Desert, Genesis busied himself teaching Tia to fight with a rapier, deeming that she needed to do her share of the work. When she lost her footing against a monster, Genesis quickly intervened and dispatched it, criticizing her for her failure. At that moment, several orange players arrived and declared their intentions to settle their grievances with him. Genesis scornfully questioned their ability and willingness to defeat him, applying their own accusations of cowardice on them. However, he became surprised when the Other Goddess stepped in-between them, offering herself as their opponent, though when the players refused to fight, he ascribed their departure to their weakness before he continued the lesson.

Shortly after the defeat of the boss of the Kurjiez Desert, Genesis and Tia found the location of the sixth and last Sacred Stone, accessible only to players accompanied by one of the two Goddesses. When the NPCs guarding the stone refused to give him the item without the presence of both Goddesses, Genesis casually ordered the Other Goddess to slaughter them mercilessly. When Kirito and Premiere arrived on the scene, Genesis mocked the former for his tardiness and ideals. At Kirito's outraged demand of an explanation for his actions, he reminded him of his wish to bring about the end of Ainground.

Immediately after this declaration, they were transported out of the instanced location. Surprised, Genesis checked the updated quest log and learnt the quest required him to take both Goddesses to the Temple of Prayers and make a final offering. Unable to find a loophole he could exploit, Genesis decided to follow the rules this time and seize Premiere. Annoyed at Kirito's refusal to surrender her to him, Genesis ordered Tia to defeat Kirito and capture her twin, feeling delight in forcing his opponent into the dilemma of killing an NPC to save another.

While Kirito was distracted by the Other Goddess, Genesis used the opportunity to launch a surprise attack that left the former stunned and open. As Tia hesitated, Genesis impatiently kicked her and repeated his command to finish Kirito; however, the attack was intercepted by Asuna. As she refused to refrain from interfering, Genesis proclaimed that she and her friends were incapable of vanquishing him. At that moment, he activated the digital drug through his in-game menu and boasted of his increase in power, before engaging her in combat. Although admitting Asuna's initial ability to match his speed and agility, Genesis proclaimed the inevitability of his victory and dealt a successful blow on her, prompting a recovered Kirito to furiously rejoin the fight.

However, Genesis simply spurned the pair's efforts, teasing them about the hopelessness of their struggle no matter the number of opponents they could summon against him. With his enhanced reflexes, he was able to anticipate their moves and strike them successfully several times. However, while he was gloating over the certainty of their defeat just before he could deliver the final attack, the effects of the digital drug expired, causing him to literally crash into the ground in intense pain. Hacking and gagging for a few seconds, Genesis commanded the Other Goddess to follow him in withdrawing from the area. As they retreated, he declared their confrontation would be finished in the Temple of Prayers.

Soon thereafter, as the Black Swordsmen and their respective allied Goddesses faced each other deep inside the Temple of Prayers, Genesis congratulated Kirito on finally arriving instead of fleeing. When Tia stepped forward, Genesis ordered her to not interfere, as he wanted to personally kill Kirito himself. In order to urge Kirito to feel the enormity and importance of their duel upon which the fate of their world rested, Genesis reminded Kirito of his determination for the ruin of everything in Ainground, proclaiming that his future legacy would render the former's heroics meaningless under him. Challenging him to stop him if he could, Genesis declared the start of the final battle.

About a quarter of the way into the duel, both Black Swordsmen paused to catch their breath. Genesis reluctantly acknowledged Kirito's tenacity, before becoming alarmed when the latter declared he had discovered the former's weakness. Upon Kirito acknowledging the Cardinal System's impenetrable security yet divulging that there was one thing it could not defend against, Genesis asked if he had modified his AmuSphere as well. However, he became stunned when the former disclosed his source of power was the vast amount of experience he had accumulated in other virtual reality games. As Genesis grew indignant at the denouncement of his strength, he became shocked at the revelation that Nanairo Arshavin, a member of the development team of Sword Art: Origin, had been eavesdropping on their conversation for some time.

Realizing he had been tricked into confessing his illegal alterations on his AmuSphere, Genesis resolved to utterly obliterate Kirito before the former's data could be erased from the game, thus he invoked the digital drug to that end. However, while exhilarating in the rush of power it gave him, he quickly became incapacitated by intense pain. Vowing to never again be afraid or weak, he shouldered the pain and declared he would eradicate Kirito's existence. Despite the boost he received from the digital drug, however, he was unable to prevent Kirito from evading his defenses and decisively unleashing a Sword Skill that concluded the fight. Standing still in shock, Genesis could only hoarsely voice his disbelief at his defeat at the hands of Kirito, before his avatar disintegrated.

Following his defeat, Genesis was arrested due to his actions being revealed to the public by Nanairo. His actions also prompted the game's development team to patch the game, resulting in fewer players using the drug.

Gallery

 * See Genesis/Image Gallery

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