Apocalyptic Shadow Guide and Rewards in Honkai: Star Rail

The current Apocalyptic Shadow Phase is the Instigation of the Locusts of Version 3.7. This phase will last from November 10, 2025 until December 22, 2025. Each phase lasts about six weeks, and will reset on a Monday at 04:00 server time.

In order to unlock Apocalyptic Shadow, you need to reach Penacony and complete the Grim Film of Finality in Dreamflux Reef. The very first stage will be accessible once you talked to Elegy.

Apocalyptic Shadow is located in Dreamflux Reef in Penacony:

Apocalyptic Shadow is one of the available endgame modes in Honkai: Star Rail where you face off against 2 different bosses featuring new combat mechanics.

Apocalyptic Shadow can be a relatively challenging mode if you come unprepared. You will need two fully leveled and properly equipped teams as you will have to beat two different bosses.

The two bosses you have to face are essentially projections of the Finality: it's bosses you already encountered during previous quests. However, this time they function differently than their normal version: they are stronger, more tanky, and have different attacks. The amount of new mechanics depends on the stage/difficulty level of the current fight.

When you enter the main menu, you can view the current Phase, the remaining time for the active phase, and the two current bosses you need to face.

Each Apocalyptic Shadow Phase has a total of 4 stages you need to complete. Each stage ramps up in difficulty. Defeating the two bosses of a difficulty will unlock the next one. The difficulty is not set by Equilibrium Level. It's fixed difficulties for each challenge.

Apocalyptic Shadow also has specific rules:

• Ruinous Embers - Each Phase has a different Ruinous Embers which are specific effects taking place during the battles.
• Finality's Axiom - Those are three different buffs that are available for each Phase. When you pick your team for a boss, you can choose which buff you want active. Pick wisely depending on your team's strength and the available buffs.
• Boss Trait - Each boss will have specific additional abilities or effects compared to their normal version. As you go up in difficulty, they also gain more traits.

Apocalyptic Shadow works with a value timer. Every time allies or enemies take action, the corresponding values is deducted from the timer. Your goal is to defeat the boss before the value timer is depleted if you want to get the most points. The points you get at the end of a battle depends on the percentage of HP left on the boss, and the remaining Action Value after successfully defeating the boss.

This means that the less HP the boss has left, and the faster you defeat him, the more points you will get at the end of the fight.

If you want the max rewards for a stage you need to reach a total of 60,000 points at the end.

If you don't defeat the Boss, you get less points. You can rechallenge each boss as many times as you want in order to try and get a better score. Just know that once your team is used, it is recorded for that stage. If you want to swap the team for any of the two bosses of one difficulty, you will have to reset both bosses of that same difficulty. Otherwise you have to retry with the same team and same equipment on both bosses.

When a new Phase starts, everything resets. However, if you complete with 3-stars each challenges, you can directly challenge the higher difficulties which will then automatically unlock the rewards for the previous ones if you manage to complete it with 3-stars again.

The Current Phase is called Instigation of the Locusts and the two bosses you have to face are Sky-Shrouding Stardevourer Swarm and Opportunistic Provocateur.

6.

Bosses, Mechanics, and Recommended Teams

Here is a breakdown of both bosses, as well as recommended teams and best tips to get the maximum points!

Sky-Shrouding Stardevourer Swarm Opportunistic Provocateur

6.1.

Sky-Shrouding Stardevourer Swarm

The first boss you can face is the Sky-Shrouding Stardevourer Swarm:

• Recommended Elements: Physical, Ice, Quantum, Imaginary
• Resistances: Fire, Lightning, Wind
• Swarm is also Resistant to Entanglement

6.2.

Boss Traits

Boss Trait	Description
Steadfast Safeguard	Boss Mirage takes 50% less DMG. After Weakness is broken and action gets additionally delayed, additionally increases DMG taken by 100%.
Insect Egg Fission	At the end of Boss Mirage's turn, Boss Mirage will gain a certain number of Insect Eggs. Boss Mirage can consume Insect Egg to enhance its Swarm summons and grant them 1 stack of "Growth Hormone".
Hormone Secretion (Difficulty 3+)	Every time Boss Mirage summons a certain number of Swarm summons, the next summon it summons will come automatically with 1 stack of "Growth Hormone".
Egg Burst (Difficulty 4)	At the end of Boss Mirage's turn, the number of Insect Eggs gained through "Nesting Incubation" increases.

6.3.

Special Mechanics

The first thing to remember is you have to defeat the Summons as soon as possible. This helps reducing the Boss's Insect Eggs and Toughness. Try to use characters that have AoE attacks in order to be able to hit both the boss, and the summons as you defeat them. Use dispel abilities to remove the debuffs when you get them.

This boss has 2 Phases:

• Phase 1 - At the end of each turn, the boss gets eggs, that he uses to buff its summons. As mentioned, defeat the summons before they get enhanced too much. if they reach enhancement level 3, they can inflict Entanglement.
• Phase 2 - During Phase two, the boss will also summon Lesser Stings. Defeat those first before they launch their attack, or reach enhancement level 3. You do not want to get hit by the detonation as it does deal a ton of damage.

6.4.

Finality's Axiom

The current Finality's Axiom are:

• Brand of Anamnesis - At the start of battle, when there are 2/3/4 Remembrance characters in the team, increases the DMG enemy targets received by 5%/10%/20% respectively. This effect also applies to all new enemies that enter combat.
• Hardened by Frost - Increases Ice DMG dealt by all targets by 50% and increases SPD by 10%.
• Heroic Vanguard - After the character in position 1 in the team uses Ultimate, increases their Weakness Break Efficiency by 50% and increases CRIT DMG by 50%, lasting for 1 turn.

6.5.

Recommended Teams

Finality's Axiom	DPS	Support/Sub-DPS	Support	Sustain
Heroic Vanguard	Phainon	Sunday	Cerydra	Dan Heng • Permansor Terrae
Heroic Vanguard	Phainon	Sunday	Bronya	Cerydra
Brand of Anamnesis	Castorice	Evernight	Tribbie	Hyacine
Brand of Anamnesis	Castorice	Evernight	Cyrene	Hyacine
Brand of Anamnesis	Castorice	Remembrance Trailblazer	Tribbie	Hyacine
Brand of Anamnesis	Castorice	Mydei	Tribbie	Hyacine
Brand of Anamnesis	Evernight	Remembrance Trailblazer	Tribbie	Hyacine
Hardened by Frost	The Herta	Anaxa	Tribbie	Aventurine

6.6.

Opportunistic Provocateur

The second boss you can face is Opportunistic Provocateur:

• Recommended Elements: Fire, Lightning, Wind, Imaginary.
• Resistances: Ice, Physical, Quantum.
• This boss also resists to Control Effects.

6.7.

Boss Traits

Boss Trait	Description
Steadfast Safeguard	Boss Mirage takes 50% less DMG. After its Weakness is broken, its action is additionally delayed, and the DMG it receives increases by 100%.
Flower By Another Name	When a new Lotus is summoned, Boss Mirage will enter the Toughness Protection state. Defeating any summon will dispel the Boss Mirage's Toughness Protection and deal additional Toughness Reduction to the Boss Mirage
Withered Tree's Revival (Difficulty 3+)	In Phase I, when Boss Mirage changes form, the summons will restore 25% HP.
Hollowflower Blaze (Difficulty 4+)	In Phase II, the summons' Max HP increases by 20%.

6.8.

Special Mechanics

During this Boss fight, you also need to focus on the summons, as defeating them will dispel the Boss' Protection. You have to pick the lotus you focus based on your own needs:

• Abundance Lotus increases allies All-Type DMG
• Destruction Lotus increases allies Break Effect

This boss has 2 Phases:

• Phase 1 - Defeat as many Lotus as you can from the bonus you want.
• Phase 2 - During the second phase, you will have to defeat the summons before they use Eternal Condemnation. The more summons you defeat before the attack hits, the less damage it will deal.

6.9.

Finality's Axiom

The current Finality's Axiom are:

• Dire Straits - When ally targets deal DMG to enemy targets afflicted with 3 DoT states or more, increases Weakness Break Efficiency by 50%.
• Stunning Remark - Increases the Weakness Break DMG received by all enemies by 15%, and additionally increases Super Break DMG received by 20%.
• Sweeping Force - Increases CRIT DMG of all allies' Basic ATK and Ultimate DMG dealt by 30%, with an additional increase of 30% against enemy targets that are Weakness Broken.

6.10.

Recommended Teams

Finality's Axiom	DPS	Support/Sub-DPS	Support	Sustain
Dire Straits	Kafka	Black Swan	Hysilens	Huohuo
Dire Straits	Kafka	Black Swan	Ruan Mei	Huohuo
Stunning Remark	Firefly	Fugue	Ruan Mei	Lingsha
Stunning Remark	Rappa	Fugue	Ruan Mei	Lingsha
Sweeping Force	Mydei	Remembrance Trailblazer	Tribbie	Luocha
Dire Straits	Anaxa	Cerydra	Sunday	Dan Heng • Permansor Terrae

Each time the Apocalyptic Shadow resets, you will be able to obtain the following rewards. These are split into Kalpa's Gift and Finale's Gift with Kalpa's Gift being for each Star obtained and Finale's Gift being for each stage cleared.

Clearing Difficulty 2 of Apocalyptic Shadow for the very first time will allow you to claim Xueyi for free! On top of that you will also obtain 300 Stellar Jade and 1 Self-Modeling Resin.

For more information on the other free characters, you can check out our dedicated guide:

Jaymo

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Written by Jaymo, a longtime gamer who spends way too many hours exploring open worlds, grinding in MMOs, and pulling for his favorite gacha characters. He covers news and guides for all kinds of games, and just likes helping people enjoy them more. You can find him hanging out on Twitch or chatting in Discord (jaym0).