Apocalyptic Shadow Guide and Rewards in Honkai: Star Rail

The current Apocalyptic Shadow Phase is the Ichor Beast of Version 3.4. This phase will last from July 07, 2025 until August 18, 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 Ichor Beast and the two bosses you have to face are Flame Reaver of Doomsday Led Astray and Starbane Doombringer.

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!

Flame Reaver of Doomsday Led Astray Starbane Doombringer

6.1.

Flame Reaver of Doomsday Led Astray

The first boss you can face is the Flame Reaver of Doomsday Led Astray:

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

6.2.

Boss Traits

Boss Trait	Description
Steadfast Safeguard	Decreases DMG taken by Boss Mirage by 50%. After its Weakness is broken, its action is additionally delayed and increases its DMG taken by 100%.
Shackle Shatter	After losing the first layer of Toughness or after taking a certain number of actions, Boss Mirage enters the Shackle Shatter state, changes their attack patterns. Shackle Shatter: Alternates between using Dying Sobs and But Suffering is Essential. Dying Sobs summons Long-Shattered Vessel and enters Charging state, and But Suffering is Essential deals Powerful Attacks. Calamity Power stacks increases the Hits Per Action of Powerful Attacks. After destroying Long-Shattered Vessel, Toughness and Calamity Power stacks can be reduced. In the second phase, Silent Sorrow and Cry Not for the Discarded will be used, and Calamity Power stacks increases.
Creeping Haze (Difficulty 3+)	Defeating Complete Vessel no longer reduces Boss Mirage's Toughness.
Vessel Enhancement (Difficulty 4)	Max HP of all Long-Shattered Vessel and Complete Vessels increases.

6.3.

Special Mechanics

The first thing to remember is you have to defeat the summons first in order to weaken the Boss itself. Defeating the summons will allows you to reduce his powerful ability, gain extra turns and buffs, and you will stop him form charging his Calamity Power. You also want to use characters that can attack multiple enemies, as you need to focus on the summons fast.

Doomsday has 2 Phases:

• Phase 1 - When Doomsday looses his first layer of Toughness, or after a certain amount of turns, he will enter the Shackle Shatter state. this changes its attack patterns, and he will constantly re-summon the Long-Shattered Vessels. Prioritize killing the Complete Vessels as this can allow you to gain turns and buffs. Each Long-Shattered Vessel defeated, the Boss loses 1 stack of Calamity Power.
• Phase 2 - Phase 2 functions essentially the same, outside the fact he will use different attacks during his Shackle Shatter phases. Keep prioritizing killing the Vessels.

6.4.

Finality's Axiom

The current Finality's Axiom are:

• Bold Leader - The DMG dealt by the character in position 1 in the lineup increases by 60%. For every 4 Skill Points consumed, 1 Skill Point is recovered.
• No Turning Back - After any ally target consumes their own HP, increases their DMG dealt by 40% for 3 turns.
• Tarsus infection - After an ally target deals DoT to an enemy, 6 Energy is regenerated. DoT dealt by all allies have 30% All-Type RES against enemy targets.

6.5.

Recommended Teams

Finality's Axiom	DPS	Support/Sub-DPS	Support	Sustain
No Turning Back	Castorice	Remembrance Trailblazer	Tribbie	Hyacine
No Turning Back	Castorice	Mydei	Tribbie	Hyacine
No Turning Back	Castorice	Remembrance Trailblazer	Silver Wolf	Hyacine
Tarsus Infection	Kafka	Black Swan	Tribbie	Huohuo
Bold Leader	Phainon	Sunday	Bronya	Tribbie
Bold Leader	Phainon	Sunday	Remembrance Trailblazer	Tingyun

6.6.

Starbane Doombringer

The second boss you can face is Starbane Doombringer:

• Recommended Elements: Physical, Fire, Ice, Wind
• Resistances: None
• Starbane Doombringer also resists to Control Effects

6.7.

Boss Traits

Boss Trait	Description
Steadfast Safeguard	Decreases DMG taken by Boss Mirage by 50%. After its Weakness is broken, its action is additionally delayed and increases its DMG taken by 100%.
Battlefield Transfer	The Antimatter Engine transfers its own weakness type to Disaster's Right Hand and Dawn's left Hand. However, when Disaster's Right Hand or Dawn's Left Hand is defeated, the Antimatter Engine's Toughness is additionally reduced.
Battle Hardened (Difficulty 3+)	After using a single-target ability, enemy units gain increased SPD for 1 turn. After using an AoE ATK ability, their ATK increases for 1 turn. Using a Support ability recovers HP to the target of the ability.
Tenacious Resolve (Difficulty 4+)	Reduces DMG received by all enemies, but every Weakness-Type they have increases DMG received.

6.8.

Special Mechanics

Since the Boss gives his own Weaknesses to his Hands, you should always focus those first. if you manage to defeat them at the same time, the boss will directly be Weakness Broken and take direct damage. When one of your character is under Quantum or Imaginary infusion status, attack the same Type icon to remove it and prevent falling into the Snarelock state.

Starbane Doombringer has 2 Phases:

• Phase 1 - As mentioned, you have to defeat the two Hands first. If you manage to break them at the same time the boss enters Weakness Break directly. If you get infused with Imaginary you need to focus on the Right Hand first. If you are infused with Quantum you need to focus on the Left Hand instead first.
• Phase 2 - Doesn't really do much more during the second phase, so keep following the same mechanic to defeat him.

6.9.

Finality's Axiom

The current Finality's Axiom are:

• Teaching and Learning Go Banana in Peel - Increases all allies' Skill DMG and Ultimate DMG dealt by 50%.
• Hunter's Stride - When an ally breaks an enemy target's Weakness, Advances Action Forward by 25%.
• Turn of Luck - Follow-up ATK DMG dealt by characters ignores 15% of the enemy target's All-Type RES and can also reduce the Toughness of targets that do not have the corresponding Weakness, with the effect being equivalent to 50% of the original Toughness Reduction from the ability.

6.10.

Recommended Teams

Finality's Axiom	DPS	Support/Sub-DPS	Support	Sustain
Hunter's Stride	Firefly	Fugue	Ruan Mei	Lingsha
Turn of Luck	Feixiao	Topaz & Numby	Robin	Aventurine
Teaching and Learning Go Banana in Peel	The Herta	Anaxa	Robin	Lingsha
Teaching and Learning Go Banana in Peel	Anaxa	Sunday	Robin	Aventurine
Teaching and Learning Go Banana in Peel	Jingliu	Sunday	Tribbie	Hyacine
Teaching and Learning Go Banana in Peel	Phainon	Sunday	Bronya	Tribbie

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

Staff Author

Follow Jaymo

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).