Apocalyptic Shadow Guide and Rewards in Honkai: Star Rail

The current Apocalyptic Shadow Phase is the Lupine Warhead of Version 3.5. This phase will last from August 15, 2025 until September 29, 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 Lupine Warhead and the two bosses you have to face are Fulminating Wolflord and Sanerot Hearteater.

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!

Fulminating Wolflord Sanerot Hearteater

6.1.

Fulminating Wolflord

The first boss you can face is the Fulminating Wolflord:

• Recommended Elements: Physical, Fire, Wind, Quantum
• Resistances: Ice, Imaginary, Lightning
• Fulminating Wolflord 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%.
Better Safe Than Sorry	When the Boss Mirage uses "Barrenness of Earth Gouged", all other Wolftroopers will be eliminated.
Apex Predator (Difficulty 3+)	After Boss Mirage enters Phase II, it gains extra action per turn during "Going Solo".
Till Death (Difficulty 4)	After Boss Mirage enters "Going Solo", reduces its DMG taken by an additional 15%.

6.3.

Special Mechanics

The first thing to remember is you have to defeat the Wolftroopers before the Boss enters its Lunar Devourer state. This will grant your allies Blood Surge and accelerate the progression toward the boss's Lunar Devourer state. This will help you reduce as much as possible the Boss's toughness before Going Solo.

Fulminating Wolflord has 2 Phases:

• Phase 1 - When Fulminating Wolflord enters Lunar Devourer your strongest ally has to be selected to engage in Going Solo. If you have a character that has a summon, select this one for Going Solo, as it will give you an advantage.
• Phase 2 - Phase two is essentially the same, but the Boss will kill all Wolftroopers when entering Lunar Devourer, so make sure you kill them first, in order to not miss out on the buffs for your allies.

6.4.

Finality's Axiom

The current Finality's Axiom are:

• Fight in Unity - When an Ally target consumes 1 Skill Point, increases the DMG dealt by all allies by 6%, stacking up to 10 times.
• Tangled Chaos - After defeating enemy targets, increases Break DMG taken by all enemies by 15% to a max of 4 stacks. This effect will also take effect on new enemies entering the battlefield.
• No Turning Back - After any ally target consumes their own HP, their CRIT DMG increases by 55%, lasting for 2 turns.

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	Ruan Mei	Hyacine
Tangled Chaos	Boothill	Fugue	Ruan Mei	Lingsha
Fight in Unity	Acheron	Silver Wolf	Sparkle	Gallagher
Tangled Chaos	Feixiao	Cipher	Robin	Hyacine

6.6.

Sanerot Hearteater

The second boss you can face is Sanerot Hearteater:

• Recommended Elements: Physical, Fire, Lightning, Quantum.
• Resistances: Ice, Wind, Imaginary.
• Sanerot Hearteater 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%.
Steelbone Summit	Parts take 50% less DMG. After Boss Mirage's Weakness is broken, the DMG they receive increases by 100%.
Sickleclawed Sawteeth (Difficulty 3+)	Boss Mirage's Toughness increases by 40.
Beastly Rage (Difficulty 4+)	The duration of Malediction state increases by 1 turn.

6.8.

Special Mechanics

During this Boss fight, you should focus on breaking weakness on the Parts, as this will also reduce massively the boss's own Toughness bar. Breaking the parts also prevents the boss from using Sweep the Heavens, Swallow the Earth.

Sanerot Hearteater has 2 Phases:

• Phase 1 - Look out for when the boss will use Soul Shattering Malediction. Make sure to select your support character, and not a DMG-dealer or sustain, as you need to keep doing damage and heal/shield your team.
• Phase 2 - Focus on inflicting weakness break on the Parts to prevent Sweep the Heavens, Swallow the Earth from happening.

6.9.

Finality's Axiom

The current Finality's Axiom are:

• Fatality Exploitation - Increases Ultimate DMG dealt by allies by 30%, and additionally increases by 30% against enemy targets in Weakness Broken state.
• Obstinate Weed - When allies use Basic ATK or Skill to attack Weakness Broken enemies, all DoTs currently applied to the enemies will immediately deal DMG equal to 15% of the original DMG.
• Heroic Vanguard - After the character in position 1 in the team uses Ultimate, their Weakness Break Efficiency increases by 50% and increases CRIT DMG by 50%, lasting for 1 turn.

6.10.

Recommended Teams

Finality's Axiom	DPS	Support/Sub-DPS	Support	Sustain
Heroic Vanguard	Phainon	Sunday	Bronya	Tribbie
Heroic Vanguard	Phainon	Sunday	Bronya	Huohuo
Obstinate Weed	Kafka	Black Swan	Hysilens	Huohuo
Obstinate Weed	Kafka	Black Swan	Ruan Mei	Huohuo
Heroic Vanguard	Firefly	Fugue	Ruan Mei	Lingsha

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).