Dance With the Beast Before Moonrise is the Trailblaze Mission added in Honkai: Star Rail Version 4.6, and it pushes the Planarcadia storyline into its Astropolis endgame. The Trailblazer works alongside Nihilux to hunt down the Voracity Oroboros, tracking the trail to a hidden research facility beneath the city and setting the stage for the cosmic contest known as the Phantasmoon Games.
Quick answer: Dance With the Beast Before Moonrise is the 4.6 main-story quest that continues the Planarcadia and Astropolis arc. It launched with Version 4.6 on September 27, 2026, and runs from Nihilux’s identity reveal to the opening of the Phantasmoon Games.
Nihilux is revealed as Aha, the Aeon of Elation
The mission begins by revisiting the defeat of Lord Ravager Asat Pramad and the Astral Express voyage to Astropolis. At the Central District overlook, the Trailblazer faces Nihilux, who reveals that she is Aha, Aeon of Elation, disguised while among mortals.
What follows is a long interactive question-and-answer sequence. Players can press Nihilux about Akivili, the Stellaron, the Voracity Oroboros, and the Fourth Finality, with a readable document called Aha’s Q&A Funbook laying out the lore in her own playful voice. The scene then moves to the World’s End Tavern, where she rallies the Mourning Actors and Masked Fools to stage a “cosmic play” designed to lure out the Voracity, casting March 7th as the Diplomat to arrange IPC broadcast permissions.
The Life Sciences Institute and Madam Yabuli
Bartender Jerica points the party toward Madam Yabuli’s Life Sciences Institute, buried beneath Astropolis. Yabuli, who heads the facility, partnered with Dr. Primitive to harvest Leviathan Essence from Vonwacq, using it to create artificial imagenae in pursuit of what she calls “Evolutionary Perfection.” That essence is exactly the kind of bait Aha’s plan needs.
Reaching the facility means passing through the Wispae Eco-Park, where agitated Wispae are running loose near the fountain. Calming them plays out as an Interplanar Jump segment, a 2D side-scrolling platforming challenge in which the player controls a small raccoon to clear hazards and reach a giant Wispae.
Inside the reception hall, the Trailblazer and Nihilux run into the detective Ashveil, security officer Kuchiba, and a talking monkey companion, all investigating the Institute for their own reasons. The perspective later switches to Ashveil and Kuchiba as they dig into the assembly line, which lets both groups piece together the same truth from opposite ends.
A tour of the production zone leads into a second Interplanar Jump, this time on the imagenae racer assembly line. The sequence has the player fit the front car component, assemble the wing panels, select the correct tail piece, apply spray paint at the customization shop, and finally route the core’s power to complete a custom racer.
Beyond the friendly tour, Yabuli’s personal Intellitron assistant Mastaka stonewalls the group’s questions and guards the high-security sector. Recovered audio logs finally connect the dots, confirming Yabuli’s pact with Dr. Primitive and the experiments carried out on Vonwacq.
Lighthouse and the truth behind Marcus Antali
The mechanical hero Lighthouse turns out to be far more than a delivery bot. He is a mass-produced chassis carrying the neural patterns and memories of Marcus Antali, the Herald of Death who was executed five years earlier. Asat Pramad’s sentient die reawakens those buried memories, which drives Lighthouse to rebel against Yabuli and release the Leviathan Essence himself.
Kuchiba also plays a crucial part: she descends from the Leviathans and eats Leviathan Essence to restrain her hunger. As the essence nears escape from the core, she advances and releases her chimeric powers, taking the corruption into herself.
Blood of the Fallen God: Yabuli boss fight
At the central core vat, the party finds Yabuli’s brain suspended in a glowing tank, her consciousness merged into an artificial Phantasmoon and driven mad. The confrontation becomes a two-phase battle against Blood of the Fallen God: Yabuli, leaning on Elation-themed mechanics such as Elation Boost, Aha Instant, and the Frenzied Beast’s Seed Germ.
The battle’s consequences extend beyond the health bars. Yabuli’s network keeps the city’s artificial imagenae running, so killing her could erase every imagenae reliant on that network. After the second phase is defeated, Lighthouse gives up his remaining core energy and Wishpower to preserve Astropolis’s dying imagenae, proving he is a protector, not a monster.
Reviving Evanescia and opening the Phantasmoon Games
Once the essence is in hand, Aha’s plan reaches its final stage: Asat Pramad’s severed die offers itself as irresistible bait to pull the Voracity into the contest. The Trailblazer heads to the Phantasmoon Courtyard and completes an oath ritual beneath the golden tree, bringing Evanescia back as the games’ official referee.
Nihilux takes the stage to inaugurate the Grand Phantasmoon Games, broadcast across Astropolis and the wider cosmos, with every faction assembled and Aha’s proxy revealed. In an IPC observation room, Jade and Aventurine watch it unfold, weighing Aha’s unpredictability and the ominous sign of a split coin. A final warning from Asat Pramad’s die closes the arc as the scene fades out.
By the time the mission banner reads Good Hunting, Dance With the Beast Before Moonrise has resolved the Yabuli plot while leaving the larger threat of the Voracity Oroboros wide open, handing the Phantasmoon Games the momentum to carry Astropolis into its next chapter.
