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 September 29, 2025 until November 9, 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 Gale of Netherveil and the two bosses you have to face are Cocolia and Guide of Withering and Decay.

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!

Cocolia Guide of Withering and Decay

6.1.

Cocolia

The first boss you can face is the Cocolia:

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

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%.
Battlefield Transfer	Gepard will join the battle and provide protection for Boss Mirage. Boss Mirage will Transfer its won Weakness Type to summons, but when those summons are defeated, Boss Mirage's Toughness will be additionally reduced.
Nowhere to Escape (Difficulty 3+)	Boss Mirage's summon will mark 1 target. After Boss Mirage uses a single-target ability, it will deliver a Follow-up Usage on the marked target.
Tenacious Resolve (Difficulty 4)	Reduces DMG received by all enemies, but every Weakness-Type they have increases DMG received.

6.3.

Special Mechanics

The first thing to remember is you have to defeat the Ice Edge Summons as soon as they appear. If you do not do this, Cocolia never gets her Weaknesses back. Once defeated, Cocolia can be weakened again.

This boss has 2 Phases:

• Phase 1 - Gepard will be summoned right after you defeat the Ice Edges. You want to defeat him before he puts his shield on Cocolia, or the fight will last way too long.
• Phase 2 - Phase two the boss will constantly try to use her Last Choir of Genesis attack to deal massive DMG to everyone. Break her weakness as fast and often as possible to prevent her from using it.

6.4.

Finality's Axiom

The current Finality's Axiom are:

• Armed Up - Increases Physical DMG dealt by all allies by 50%, and decreases all enemies' Physical RES by 20%.
• Obstinate Weed - When allies use Basic ATK or SKill to attack Weakness Broken enemies, all DoTs currently applied to the enemies will immediately produce DMG equal to 20% of the original DMG.
• Rime Piercer - Increases all enemies' Break DMG taken by 10%. After Breaking an enemy's Weakness, increases all allies' SPD by 20 % for 2 turns.

6.5.

Recommended Teams

Finality's Axiom	DPS	Support/Sub-DPS	Support	Sustain
Armed Up	Phainon	Sunday	Cerydra	Gallagher
Armed Up	Phainon	Sunday	Bronya	Huohuo
Obstinate Weed	Kafka	Black Swan	Hysilens	Huohuo
Obstinate Weed	Kafka	Black Swan	Ruan Mei	Huohuo
Rime Piercer	Firefly	Fugue	Ruan Mei	Lingsha

6.6.

Guide of Withering and Decay

The second boss you can face is Guide of Withering and Decay:

• Recommended Elements: Ice, Wind, Quantum, Imaginary.
• Resistances: None.
• 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%.
Withered Venture	In this combat, ally units' HP will not drop below 1, and any DMG taken exceeding a certain amount of their current HP will be converted into HP Overload. Ally units in the HP Overload state will have their DMG dealt and Weakness Break Efficiency greatly reduced.
Tender the Rigid (Difficulty 3+)	"The Long Arms of Sorrow's" Max Toughness increases.
Tenacious Resolve (Difficulty 4+)	Reduces DMG received by all enemies, but every Weakness Type they have increases DMG received.

6.8.

Special Mechanics

During this Boss fight, you need to focus on the Long Arms first and inflict weakness break on them in order to inflict Pollux with his own Weaknesses. You also need to keep an eye on your HP. Make sure to heal if one of your character goes into negative HP values. This reduces the DMG you deal otherwise.

This boss has 2 Phases:

• Phase 1 - Keep an eye out for HP Overload and heal the targeted allies as soon as possible.
• Phase 2 - During the second phase, if you do not heal back to positive Health values all the characters that are under HP Overload, they will be one-shot by the Death Wishes For More Death attack.

6.9.

Finality's Axiom

The current Finality's Axiom are:

• Unstoppable Force - DMG dealt by memosprites ignores 20% of the target's DEF.
• Innervation - Increases all allies' Skill DMG by 30%. At the start of their turn, if their current HP percentage is equal to or lower than 1%, restores HP equal to 15% of their Max HP.
• Unstoppable Momentum - When a character uses Ultimate, increases their Weakness Break Efficiency by 100% and increases CRIT DMG by 40%, lasting for 3 turns.

6.10.

Recommended Teams

Finality's Axiom	DPS	Support/Sub-DPS	Support	Sustain
Unstoppable Force	Castorice	Remembrance Trailblazer	Tribbie	Hyacine
Unstoppable Force	Castorice	Mydei	Tribbie	Hyacine
Unstoppable Force	Castorice	Evernight	Tribbie	Hyacine
Unstoppable Force	Evernight	Remembrance Trailblazer	Tribbie	Hyacine
Innervation	The Herta	Anaxa	Tribbie	Aventurine

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).