Apocalyptic Shadow Guide and Rewards in Honkai: Star Rail

The current Apocalyptic Shadow Phase is the Instigation of the Locusts of Version 3.8. This phase will last from December 22, 2025 until January 02, 2026. 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 Primate Knight and the two bosses you have to face are Silver Knight of Virtuous Gallantry and Blaznana Monkey Trick.

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!

Silver Knight of Virtuous Gallantry Blaznana Monkey Trick

6.1.

Silver Knight of Virtuous Gallantry

The first boss you can face is the Silver Knight of Virtuous Gallantry, also know as Argenti:

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

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%. Soulfreed summons will be greatly enhanced. In Phase II, all summons will be enhanced to Soulfreed state.
Reversal of Fortune	Boss Mirage can switch its own Combat Stance in battle and summon different statues to fight. When characters defeat statues in the SOulfreed state. DMG dealt by the team in this battle will be increased.
Turn Back the Tide (Difficulty 3+)	When Boss Mirage uses Soulfreed in Phase II, it will target all statues.
Stellar Aegis (Difficulty 4)	For every unit on the enemy's side of the field aside from Boss Mirage, all enemies receive less DMG and deal more DMG.

6.3.

Special Mechanics

The first thing to remember is you have to defeat the Summons as soon as possible. This helps break the Boss's weakness faster. Focus the enhanced Speartip summons first as it will enhance your allies and weaken the boss, and defeat the shield summons next to get a shield.

This boss has 2 Phases:

• Phase 1 - The boss will summon 2 types of adds, Speartip and Shields. Defeat them as fast as possible and focus the enahnced Speartip first to break his weakness.
• Phase 2 - On top of the other summons the boss will also add The Honored units. Target those first and defeat them to be able to target the boss again. Breaking the Honored weakness can also reduce the DMG dealt by the Boss.

6.4.

Finality's Axiom

The current Finality's Axiom are:

• Shatterstrike - Increases Break DMG dealt by all allies buy 10%. When an enemy target enters the Weakness Break state, further increases Break DMG by 5%. This effect can stack up to 4 times.
• Linebreaker - The 1st character in the lineup ignores 15% of the enemy target's DEF when dealing DMG.
• Unto Apotheosis - When ally targets consume Skill Points, increases their CRIT DMG by 6%, stacking up to 10 times.

6.5.

Recommended Teams

Finality's Axiom	DPS	Support/Sub-DPS	Support	Sustain
Linebreaker	Phainon	Sunday	Cerydra	Dan Heng • Permansor Terrae
Shatterstrike	Firefly	Fugue	The Dahlia	Lingsha
Shatterstrike	Firefly	Fugue	Ruan Mei	Lingsha
Shatterstrike	Rappa	Fugue	The Dahlia	Lingsha
Shatterstrike	Rappa	Fugue	Ruan Mei	Lingsha
Linebreaker	Mydei	Remembrance Trailblazer	Cyrene	Hyacine
Linebreaker	Evernight	Remembrance Trailblazer	Tribbie	Hyacine
Linebreaker	The Herta	Anaxa	Tribbie	Aventurine

6.6.

Blaznana Monkey Trick

The second boss you can face is Opportunistic Provocateur:

• Recommended Elements: Fire, Lightning, Ice, Imaginary.
• Resistances: Wind, 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%.
United Front	All enemy units take 50µ les DMG and possesses Switch Tally while in "Classroom Channel." After Boss Mirage's Weakness is Broken, the DMG it receives increases by 100%.
Tally Loss (Difficulty 3+)	At the beginning of every turn, enemy units in "Classroom Channel" will lose a certain number in the Switch Tally.
SPD Boost (Difficulty 4+)	Increases SPD for "End-of-Semester Dinner."

6.8.

Special Mechanics

During this Boss fight, you want to take characters with you that can deal AoE DMG in order to hit all enemies simultaneously to accumulate Switch Tallies on everyone, and swap them into the "Off Classroom Channel". You can also do this by breaking their weakness. Make sure to keep attacking them with AoE attacks to reduce the toughness bar and break their weakness

Focus on the Mr. Domescreens first because they will reduce your Energy if you do not switch channels.

6.9.

Finality's Axiom

The current Finality's Axiom are:

• Past Life: Shadowed Reverie - When there are 3 ally memosprites or more currently on the field, increases all allies' dealt DMG by 60%
• Whirlwind Turn - After ally targets attack an enemy target with 1 or more DoT states, increases their SPD by 25% for 3 turns.
• Knowledge and Decorum - While any character following the Path of Erudition is in the team, increases all allies' All-Type RES PEN by 15%.

6.10.

Recommended Teams

Finality's Axiom	DPS	Support/Sub-DPS	Support	Sustain
Past Life: Shadowed Reverie	Castorice	Evernight	Tribbie	Hyacine
Past Life: Shadowed Reverie	Castorice	Evernight	Cyrene	Hyacine
Past Life: Shadowed Reverie	Castorice	Remembrance Trailblazer	Tribbie	Hyacine
Past Life: Shadowed Reverie	Castorice	Mydei	Tribbie	Hyacine
Whirlwind Turn	Kafka	Black Swan	Hysilens	Huohuo
Whirlwind Turn	Kafka	Black Swan	Ruan Mei	Huohuo
Knowledge and Decorum	The Herta	Anaxa	Tribbie	Aventurine
Whirlwind Turn	Acheron	Jiaoqiu	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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