Destiny 2 Cull’s Shadow is the final Exotic weapon added to the game. It’s a Kinetic Fusion Rifle with glaive-style melee blades, earned by completing the Oblation: Bloodline secret Exotic Mission on the Moon. The mission doesn’t appear on your map by default. You have to unlock it through a hidden questline first. This guide covers every step — unlock, mission, boss fight, and the first catalyst — in order.
- Cull’s Shadow is a Kinetic Exotic Fusion Rifle that plays like a hybrid between a fusion rifle and a glaive
- The Oblation: Bloodline mission is hidden — it does not appear on the Moon map until you complete the unlock steps
- You need a Weapon of Sorrow equipped throughout the unlock and the mission — Thorn from the Monument to Lost Lights is the fastest to get
- Unlock requires: completing the Scarlet Keep Strike and shooting Hive runes in the boss room, then finding four Hive crystals across Moon patrol zones
- The mission entrance is a hidden tunnel under the bridge leading to the Scarlet Keep in Sorrow’s Harbor
- The boss fight is a two-phase encounter against Valus Tau’rig — dunk the Soulfire buff into the same chalice the boss is draining
- Do not leave after the boss dies — the first catalyst and the unlock for the second mission are found in the post-boss area
What Is Cull’s Shadow
Cull’s Shadow is a Kinetic Exotic Fusion Rifle with frontal melee blades built into the muzzle. It uses Special Ammo and plays as a melee-ranged hybrid — closer to a Glaive in feel than a standard Fusion Rifle.
Its two base perks define the loop. Soulburn heals you and generates Soulfire Charges on melee final blows or rapid blade hits. With charges active, your fired rounds inflict Corruption on targets. Corrupted targets take increased damage from the blades. Soulforge then converts corrupted enemies into explosive Soulfire Crystals when they die. Destroy the crystals with your blades for AoE damage.
The weapon has four Exotic catalysts — called Soulfire traits — that extend this loop. They’re unlocked across three sequential missions: Oblation Bloodline, Soulfed, and Immolation. This guide covers getting the weapon from Bloodline. For all four catalysts, see our Destiny 2 Cull’s Shadow catalysts guide.
Cull’s Shadow counts as a Weapon of Sorrow once you have it, meaning it satisfies the Weapon of Sorrow requirement for all future Oblation mission runs — including the second and third missions in the chain.
Before You Start — Get a Weapon of Sorrow
You need a Weapon of Sorrow equipped at multiple points during the unlock and throughout the mission. The Hive runes won’t appear without one in your active loadout. This is mandatory, not optional.
There are four Weapons of Sorrow that qualify: Thorn, Osteo Striga, Necrochasm, and Touch of Malice. If you don’t already have one, get Thorn first. Go to the Tower, open the Monument to Lost Lights kiosk, find Thorn in the Forsaken Exotics tab, and purchase it for 1 Exotic Cipher and 125,000 Glimmer. It takes five minutes and has no RNG.
You do not need the Weapon of Sorrow for the entire Scarlet Keep Strike — only from the boss room onward. Equip it when you reach Hashladun’s arena.
For a full breakdown of all four Weapons of Sorrow and how to get them, see our Destiny 2 Weapons of Sorrow guide.
How to Unlock the Oblation Bloodline Mission — Step by Step
Step 1: Run the Scarlet Keep Strike
Launch the Scarlet Keep Strike from the Moon destination map. Any difficulty works — use the lowest available. Run through it normally until you reach the final boss arena where Hashladun, Daughter of Crota spawns.
Defeat Hashladun. Once she’s dead, equip your Weapon of Sorrow. Three glowing Hive rune symbols will appear on the walls of the arena — on each side of the large locked gate at the back and on the rear wall. Shoot all three runes with your Weapon of Sorrow. Order does not matter here — just hit the correct rune discs.
The iron bars at the back of the arena drop. Walk through the gate. Turn right. You’ll find a Hive Crystal — interact with it. Text appears: a signal about darkness building beneath the Moon. The crystal sends you to four locations across the Moon patrol zone. Complete the strike to exit.
Step 2: Find the Four Hive Crystals on the Moon
Return to Moon patrol. Four locations are now marked on your map as Suspicious Syndicate Activity. Each contains a locked door with Hive runes and a crystal behind it. You need to shoot the runes in the correct order to open each door, then interact with the crystal inside.
How the rune puzzles work: Look at the symbols on the locked door. Find matching rune discs scattered around the room. Shoot them in order from top to bottom with your Weapon of Sorrow. The door opens. Interact with the crystal.
The four crystal locations are:
- Archer’s Line: Find the fallen Syndicate Trooper near the zone. A buff reading “Soulfire Network frequency” fills as you get closer. Interact with the trooper — text directs you to the Shrine of Oryx. Follow the dead troopers along the path. The Shrine has a five-rune puzzle instead of three — same method, just more runes. Interact with the crystal inside.
- Hellmouth / Chamber of Night: Go deep into the Hellmouth, past the Gatehouse. Find the door with rune symbols. Shoot them top to bottom. Interact with the crystal.
- Temple of Crota: The Temple is east of the Anchor of Light zone. Find the locked door, solve the rune puzzle, interact with the crystal inside.
- Sorrow’s Harbor / K1 Revelations Lost Sector: Run to the end of the K1 Revelations Lost Sector in Sorrow’s Harbor. Shoot the runes in the boss arena to open the small door. Interact with the crystal.
You can do the four crystals in any order. After the fourth crystal, the game directs you to a signal beneath the bridge leading into the Scarlet Keep.
Step 3: Enter the Hidden Tunnel in Sorrow’s Harbor
Head to Sorrow’s Harbor. Go to the bridge that leads toward the Scarlet Keep entrance. Do not go through the main door. Instead, look at the right side of the bridge and drop down to the path below it. Go under the structure and look for a hidden tunnel opening.
Inside the tunnel is a door. Interact with it. This launches the Oblation: Bloodline Exotic Mission.
After this first launch, the mission node also becomes visible on the Moon destination map. You don’t need to re-enter through the tunnel for future runs — you can launch it directly from the map.
Fireteam note: If one player in your group has completed all four crystal steps, other fireteam members may be able to access the mission without finishing the prerequisites. This is not confirmed for every scenario, but worth testing before farming it solo.
How to Complete Oblation: Bloodline
Opening — Cabal Sabotage Section
The mission opens inside a Cabal-occupied Hive fortress. Speak to Aunor Mahal when prompted, then drop down and engage the Cabal enemies.
Your first objective is to sabotage the drilling operation. Find the red building with a control panel and activate it — the “Override Safety Protocols” prompt. This reveals three glowing fuses in the large pipes nearby. Shoot all three to destroy them.
Next, destroy the four Cooling Pillar heat vents — shoot all sides of each pillar. Take the Cabal cannon into the next area, override the next security panel, and destroy two more Cooling Pillars there. Clear the Cabal, overload the drill, and enter the cannon to reach the next section.
Hive Tunnels — Soulfire Barrier Mechanic
The mission transitions from Cabal into Hive territory. Navigate upward through the tunnels — jump on lanterns and Scarlet Keep structures to climb. This is the platforming and puzzle section.
Here the Soulfire Barrier mechanic is introduced. It runs through the rest of this mission and the full Oblation chain. The mechanic works like this:
- Find specific enemies in the area and defeat them with your melee blades to collect a Soulfire buff
- Carry the buff to a brazier/chalice bowl and deposit it
- Solve a Hive rune puzzle at the door to proceed
- Repeat until all braziers are lit and the Soulfire barrier is cleared
Light all braziers to drop the Soulfire barrier and open the path to the boss fight.
Boss Fight — Valus Tau’rig, The Insatiable
The final encounter of Oblation: Bloodline is a two-phase fight against Valus Tau’rig.
Phase 1: Deal damage to Valus Tau’rig normally. His health bar is not large for a boss of his size. A handful of rockets or Power Ammo will drop him quickly. Deal damage until his health is depleted.
Phase 2: Valus Tau’rig becomes immune. The Soulfire Barrier mechanic from the mission returns. Two Soulfire Vessels appear in the arena — one on the right and one on the left. Go to each vessel and deal with the immune Wizards guarding them. The Wizards only take damage from nearby ground explosions — bait them into the blast radius to kill them. Once the Wizards are down, destroy the shield on the vessel.
Pick up the Soulfire buff from the vessel. Critical step: dunk the buff into the same chalice that Valus Tau’rig is actively draining power from. Watch which chalice the boss is drawing energy from and deposit your buff there. Depositing into the wrong chalice fails the phase and you’ll need to restart it.
Correct deposits remove Tau’rig’s immunity. Repeat until the boss is defeated.
After the boss falls, do not leave the mission. The first Cull’s Shadow catalyst and the unlock for the second Oblation mission are in the post-boss area.
Post-Boss — Soulfire Succor Catalyst and Oblation: Soulfed Unlock
After claiming Cull’s Shadow from the boss chest, turn around and exit the boss room. Head back into the first encounter area and clear all remaining enemies, including the large ones.
Climb to the position of the third Soulfire buff from the encounter phase. You’ll find a floating Hive grimoire. Interact with it — the prompt reads “Indulge Cull’s Shadow.” Hive rune symbols appear on the surrounding walls.
Equip Cull’s Shadow or any Weapon of Sorrow and shoot the runes in the correct order. This unlocks Oblation: Soulfed — the second mission in the chain — and immediately awards the Soulfire Succor catalyst. Succor causes destroying Soulfire Crystals with the weapon’s blades to grant extra Soulfire Charges and partially reload the magazine from reserves.
The second mission can be launched from the door in the area or from the Moon map going forward.
Cull’s Shadow Full Catalyst Overview
There are four Soulfire trait catalysts total, spread across all three Oblation missions:
- Soulfire Succor — unlocked in the post-boss area of Oblation: Bloodline. Destroying crystals with blades grants charges and partially reloads from reserves.
- Soulfire Rancor — unlocked from a chest in Oblation: Soulfed. Crystals expel potent corruption on destruction.
- Soulfire Zeal — unlocked via a rune-on-weapon puzzle in Oblation: Soulfed. Destroying crystals regenerates melee energy.
- Soulfire Skewer — awarded automatically at the end of Oblation: Immolation. Frontal blades inflict corruption when nearby crystals detonate.
For the full step-by-step breakdown of all four catalysts across all three missions, see our Destiny 2 Cull’s Shadow catalysts guide.
Tips for Getting Cull’s Shadow Efficiently
Get Thorn before starting. It’s the fastest Weapon of Sorrow to obtain and works for every step of the unlock and the full mission chain. Don’t waste time farming a raid exotic just to start this quest.
You don’t need the Weapon of Sorrow for the whole Scarlet Keep Strike. Equip it when you reach Hashladun’s arena. You can run the earlier strike sections with your preferred loadout.
The four Moon crystals can be done in any order. There’s no forced sequence. Check your map and tackle whichever crystal location is closest to your current position.
The tunnel entrance is easy to miss. It’s on the right side of the bridge leading to the Scarlet Keep — not the main door. Drop down from the bridge and look under the structure. The opening is small.
Don’t leave after the boss. The Soulfire Succor catalyst and the Soulfed mission unlock are both in the post-boss area. Leaving immediately costs you a full extra mission run to come back for them.
Wrong chalice dunk fails the boss phase. Watch carefully which chalice Tau’rig is draining. Deposit your Soulfire buff into that specific one. Depositing into the other chalice forces you to restart the phase.
For other Monument of Triumph content to run alongside the Oblation chain, our Destiny 2 Strange Signal guide covers the Distortions quest for high-tier patrol loot. The Destiny 2 Archie location guide and other Tower Triumph guides are worth completing in the same session for quick Legendary Marks. For the Immortal title that requires Monument of Triumph Triumph completion, see our Destiny 2 Immortal title guide. If you need Exotic Ciphers to purchase Thorn for this quest, our Destiny 2 Xur location guide keeps his weekly spawn updated.
