Editing Antarctic Lights

{{IB-Level
 |image      = AntarcticLights.png
 |id         = 144988390
 |creator    = ⁨declan (host and publisher)
;Contributors
SkyJax, Tolstyh, and Arcturus
 |verifier   = Axinity
 |created    = [[Update 2.1]]
 |updated    = [[Update 2.2]]
 |difficulty = {{ExtremeDemon}}
 |stars      = 10
 |coins      = 3
 |length     = 1m 0s (Long)
 |objects    = 54,884
 |copytype   = No password
 |downloads  = 289K
 |likes      = 6.1K
 |rating     = Featured
 |artist     = [https://rukkus.newgrounds.com/ NIGHTkilla (Rukkus)]
 |music      = [https://www.newgrounds.com/audio/listen/428157 Fear Me]
 |musicid    = 428157
}}
'''Antarctic Lights''' is a [[Update 2.1|2.1]]/[[Update 2.2|2.2]] Extreme Demon collaboration level hosted by ⁨declan, verified by Axinity and published on 16 July 2026.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uue4ZRhVf-I</ref> It is a buffed remake of [[Arctic Lights]].

Despite its short length, Antarctic Lights features absurdly tight wave gaps, multiple speed changes, and raw precision (based on frame windows) that towers over [[Tidal Wave]].<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKXWUKkFv0c</ref> Antarctic Lights predominantly uses a cold blue colour palette, with decoration similar to Arctic Lights but with a more polished, refined Nine Circles effect.

After verification on 14 July 2026, Antarctic Lights was rated on 22 July 2026 and placed at #8 on the [[Demonlist (Pointercrate)|Demonlist]] a month later, making it the hardest [[Nine Circles Levels|Nine Circles level]] in the list's history.

==Verification==
Axinity first uploaded his progress of Antarctic Lights on 22 March 2024, where he achieved 49-100%.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA1ojHctjsY</ref> The level was thought to be harder than [[Slaughterhouse]], which itself was #7 on the Demonlist at the time. Axinity posted his next progress on 14 February 2025 and reached 39%.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVJvDeNMm6E</ref> On 1 October, he got a 39-100% run, beating Antarctic Lights in two runs.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoCLqk1Q2Ac</ref> Five days later, he got 51%, with 192,204 attempts overall.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BvEZmCKcFo</ref> Axinity got a new best of 63% on 4 November,<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=undmDdM1tak</ref> and 70% on 25 November.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CNM2m9YF82c</ref>

The next year, on 3 February, Axinity achieved a 25-100% run with roughly 300,000 attempts.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X221kjOFiWk</ref> Axinity got a new 73% best on 9 February,<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RBNRndp-xE</ref> 78% on 21 March,<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Su22UokB-E</ref> 85% on 3 April,<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoXSjNnWIlI</ref> 90% on 14 April<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5HC5DUj0d8</ref> and 92% on 10 July,<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_M3D5xP0w7c</ref> amassing 377,075 total attempts.

Axinity finally verified Antarctic Lights on 16 July 2026, after 381,058 attempts.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uue4ZRhVf-I</ref>

==Description==
*'''0-14%:''' Antarctic Lights begins with a cube sequence, the first part of the pre-drop. The music is very calm and melancholic. The decoration is very bright in this section, with glowing obstacles and a background dyed predominantly cold blue, but also orange, mint, and purple. It features gravity and size changes, along with plenty of orbs. The player must manoeuvre between tightly packed obstacles, requiring precise timing. The sequence ends with a jump into the ball portal.
*'''14-25%:''' The music in this section gets more intense, along with the difficult ball gameplay, requiring near-perfect orb inputs throughout. The level flickers with orange and mint colours. After hitting a blue orb, the player turns into a cube and jumps up into the ship portal.
*'''25-37%:''' The music's beats get louder and louder. This ship sequence is filled with straight-fly and precise inputs and orbs, similar to those in [[Sakupen Circles (Diamond)|Sakupen Circles]]. After that comes a brief relief with a cube sequence and memory reminiscent of [[Sonic Wave Infinity]]; this section is very dark, and the player is unexpectedly thrown into the drop.
*'''37-83%:''' The drop begins; extremely excruciating wave gameplay is presented to the player at mostly quadruple speed, with sometimes triple- and double-speed gameplay. The level's flashes are as intense as the song. As a wave, the player must hit ultra-precise timings, watch for near-invisible gravity and size portals, and react fast to everything on screen. There are no breaks in this section, so the player must stay focused the whole time.
*'''83-100%:''' The music calms, but the difficulty does not slow down. Game-modes alternate between cube, ship, and UFO, all of which require extreme skill, as some of the hardest timings are in this section. After the last ball, as a ship, the player must dodge sawblades and two red orbs, and is thrown through a tight sawblade corridor. The level ends with a Lenny face on the end screen, a reference to Arctic Light's end screen that is visible after activating Low Detail Mode. This time, the player must fly directly through the Lenny face to finish.

==User coins==
Antarctic Lights contains three user coins. At the end of the level, the player can collect them by flying into the eyes of the Lenny face. Keep in mind that this section has invisible hitboxes.

==Gameplay==
{{VC|Ii25Ypw_Cjs}}

==First 10 victors==
{| class="wikitable"
 !Victor #
 !Player
 !Date Completed
 !Total Attempts
 !Furthest Fail
 !Video
 |-
 |'''Verifier'''
 |'''Axinity'''
 |14 July 2026
 |381,058
 |92%
 |[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uue4ZRhVf-I YouTube]
 |-
 |1
 |Weyolll3
 |20 August 2026
 |70,904
 |89%
 |[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1snChQCzX4 YouTube]
 |-
 |2
 |[[Zoink]]
 |14 September 2026
 |~5,400
 |90%
 |[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUIX3wDdBGA YouTube]
|}

==Controversy==
After verifying Antarctic Lights, Axinity posted his completion video on 16 July 2026,<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uue4ZRhVf-I</ref> and wrote 'Showcasers, you suck.' in the description, with no explanation whatsoever. Not long after, [[Nexus]] asked his community in a poll whether he should showcase Antarctic Lights (after seeing what Axinity wrote), and over 90% of voters chose 'Sure'.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxyoWJXn-2ZOLHGP-v19DMseKvDpplFD4d</ref> Nexus would then proceed to upload a showcase titled 'ANTARCTIC LIGHTS VERIFIED | TOP 10'. A few minutes later, Axinity posted on Twitter, and it went viral right away, in which he criticised Nexus for showcasing the level, claiming that 'both me [Axinity] and Declan said no :D'.<ref>https://x.com/Axinity_/status/2080757933294387650</ref> However, there was no proof of that happening.

After the tweet, the community divided into two main camps: those who supported Nexus and those who supported Axinity. People argued that, out of basic human respect, Nexus should have honoured the creators' wishes, and they felt he bypassed their boundaries purely to capitalise on the hype and ad revenue of a major new level release. In defence of Nexus, people claimed that Nexus had the right to showcase the level because it was uploaded to a public, open-access server owned by [[Robert Topala|RobTop]]. Because the level ID is public, anyone has the legal and technical right to play, record, or showcase it. They viewed the creators' request as an unreasonable gatekeeping of public content. They also questioned why Axinity approves of his friend declan showcasing Antarctic Lights, since he hates showcasers. Additionally, Nexus waited for eight days before even making his own showcase.

After the drama, Nexus made a YouTube community post saying he removed his Antarctic Lights showcase video because he was truly unaware that both Axinity and declan did not want him to do so.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/post/Ugkxxz1dxm5X4ZJUYPHZv8Fqdoz3U7KZRaa3</ref> Nexus's poll on whether he should showcase the level happened because of the 'Showcasers, you suck.' message in the description, as he was not aware of what that meant and wanted his viewers to decide.

After all that, Nexus made another community post. He said that he never wanted to take credit for anyone's verification, and putting, e.g. 'FLAMEWALL VERIFIED' in the title was just celebratory. However, he said that he will make his showcase titles clearer from now on.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/post/UgkxzD4E6B666ACTqFqb5DJZxlJEKCjoQrxX</ref>

On 5 August 2026, amid the recent drama, zeenoh made a video about the problem with showcasers in the [[Geometry Dash]] community, explaining how showcasing has deteriorated over the years.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBKA8qO8GZo</ref> zeenoh brought up the example of Nexus, who used to be a showcase channel for levels he beat himself, but after seeing the success of showcasers like Just a GD player, who started showcasing newly verified Top 1 levels, he decided to do the same. However, he would make his video titles misleading, as if he had verified these levels himself, to gain views, like the earlier-mentioned 'FLAMEWALL VERIFIED'. Also, zeenoh called present-day showcasing one of the laziest things ever, and not only does it take away views from the verifier, but it also gives huge amounts of revenue to showcasers who took 10 minutes, max 1 hour, to bot a level. At the same time, a top player can spend months on one single level. Zoink reacted to the video, agreeing with everything said, and condemning Nexus for his actions.<ref>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwLUDuuWb80</ref>

==Trivia==
*Antarctic Lights was rated on 23 July 2026 and placed at #8 on the Demonlist on 22 August 2026, above [[Nullscapes]] and below [[ORBIT]], becoming the new hardest Nine Circles level on the list.
**This addition pushed Collapse into the Extended List and NEUTRA into the Legacy List.
*Antarctic Lights is currently the hardest rated level to contain user coins.
*Antarctic Lights is related to Ultra Paracosm by declan directly through [[Hyper Paracosm]], as Arctic Lights is a sequel to Hyper Paracosm, and Ultra Paracosm is a buffed remake of it.

==Videos==
{{VC|Uue4ZRhVf-I
 |cpt1 = Verification
}}

==References==
<references />
[[Category:Demon List levels]]