Crippling Zon-Kuthon doesn't work on the first try.

It does work on the second.

A Keltham appears in a Golarion...  That previous possibility-run, the sixth, went quite well, compared to others that had come before.  Will the Game let Nethys play almost-exactly the same way twice, if Nethys tries that?

...Creation comes literally to an end, Keltham and Pharasma dying together in a fire.

The Game, it seems, hasn't been set up to encourage its player to play it exactly the same way twice.

So then a Keltham appears in a Golarion; and a Nethys decides that (given how the last sight-of-possibility ended) it's worth checking if doing something stranger, newer, and more counterintuitive is the path to a still better ending (as Nethys defines betterness).

What if He leaves Cayden and Milani out of it all, this time, and instead pushes as hard as possible on corrupting Keltham to Asmodeanism generally, and shipping him to Abrogail Thrune particularly?  Is that maybe the key to everything?

It isn't.

A Keltham appears in a Golarion, and more Nethysi are seeing Nethysi, by this time, it no longer resembles an exact stacking of iterations; there are Nethysi visible partway through their Games but not finished in them, though the whole lattice remains well-founded...

...one can't have Snack Service prevent Keltham from having any kids, because then when Keltham reaches Osirion he doesn't feel time-pressured enough to start augmenting his stats; and an unaugmented Keltham can hardly succeed in threatening Creation, or even succeed at concealing his own intentions...

The Nethysi suspected as much beforehand.  But after enough other tries and interventions, you dedicate a handful of timelines to testing batches of obvious-seeming propositions like that one.

Or the proposition that Otolmens will act on sufficiently alarming information Asmodia receives, once Asmodia becomes legible enough to Otolmens and She starts to understand some of what Asmodia is thinking.  Asmodia has to be protected, but not so protected that she ends up staying around Keltham...

...and in time, Keltham appears in Golarion, and Nethys witnesses it, and the Things that watch from orthogonal angles crowd around in numbers far greater than in the glimpsed possibilities, though it takes some time for Nethys's fragments to realize that; just as it takes His fragments time to pass word among themselves and realize Keltham's import at all.

Nethys fragments have sometimes considered the theory that the Things, in observing events, make them more real.

Nethys observer-moments who find themselves observed by few or no Things tend to reject this theory; if it's true, it'd be very surprising to find themselves in a universe with no Things watching it.

Conversely, Nethysi who find themselves in one of those numerically-rare universes which are being watched by great numbers of Things, tend to suddenly reverse course about this belief, and conclude that those numerically infrequent observer-moments witnessed by Things are perhaps the most real observer-moments, after all.

(The Nethysi in other less-watched possibilities, as may witness their neighbor-Nethys come to this conclusion, can only shake Their heads about it; They can see why that rare other Nethys would make the mistake, but really the Observer finds Himself over here, in that Nethys's own experience, where hardly any Things are watching at all!)

This Nethys of the most recent iteration, having spotted the Things, now concludes that this possibility will be one of the most real ones; maybe it is the real timeline and all the other glimpsed-possibilities were only possibilities, real to some vastly lesser degree; implying a hard switch from exploration to exploitation–

But it is already too late (by the time Nethys realizes that much) to take the surest route He can see from here without exactly repeating Himself, which would have involved subsidizing Keltham for three circles from Abadar rather than four.  Nethys is already set upon a riskier path by the time He adds up all His information.

So there's nothing for it but to play the Game with verve (as probably the Things themselves did anticipate), using and combining all of the advantages that Nethys has found so far.  Including moves that haven't been combined previously and whose combined outcomes are not tested, for the Game doesn't encourage trying to play it safely.

Carissa's sexuality, Pilar's sexuality, Yaisa's sexuality, are made known to Keltham.

He is told truthfully that Pilar Pineda came back from Elysium; he is shown that it's possible for a soul to believe itself free and safe, and still come back to serve Asmodeus in Golarion and then in Hell.

Keltham hears from Pilar that a submissive can want, need, something to crush her down like a bug underfoot; that when she feels disgusting she needs to be crushed by something that sees her as equally lowly and degraded, for that part of herself to feel seen, acknowledged, punished...

All to get Keltham to a point, previously reached in only two fully witnessed iterations, where Keltham will be okay with not ripping Asmodeus out of reality, with offering Asmodeus enough of Creation's Future that Asmodeus does not fight to the death or try to release Rovagug; where Keltham will be fine with Pilar telling him of the offer that Milani will convey to Asmodeus after Cayden Cailean is dead - yes, Keltham (Pilar says, in Nethys's vision of previous possibility, in a telepathic meeting of three minds), yes Keltham that's an okay way for a mortal to be, I still believe that, even now that I've come to know myself and all the ways Asmodeus wasn't the best possible god for me -

And the vision plays on, to show what approximately should have happened, if it had all gone as Nethys's walkthrough showed, of the best previous endings He'd reached, interpolated between pieces He was trying to combine for the first time -

- a world where Keltham had been more deeply wounded; where a more penitent Carissa returned to him -

- where Keltham warned Carissa less, before he bought her Wishes; where she sold them unknowing of Keltham's plans.  They are far more estranged, after that, though still working together -

- Keltham descends on Absalom earlier, before his children can be ensouled, suspecting this to be his trope-given deadline as to when he should act -

- Keltham, who's had less time to plan and master magic at INT 29, who had less cooperation from Carissa about designing magic items, uses one entire Wish scroll to create an almost-certainly-sufficient quantity of antimatter above Absalom inside a shell of spellsilver, not trying any fancy tricks with the Ethereal in case that cleverness doesn't work on the first try -

- blasting down Aroden's whole Starstone Cathedral in a terrible flash, burning an outer inch of divinity from the Starstone itself, slaying almost every soul remaining in Absalom, sending tsunamis blasting out to sink ships and ruin coastlines -

- there is no time to break and remake Abrogail Thrune, for Cheliax to bend knee to Sevar and let the world hear of it -

- there is less time for Pilar to become stronger, for Sevar's fame and faith to grow, and all three are more rushed and damaged about their ascent to divinity -

- Keltham has no slack to actually set in motion an ark project headed by Fe-Anar -

- and a number of other things go less well.

...and Gruhastha, Lawful Good god of enlightenment and books, said to be Irori's nephew, called also the Keeper, closes His book in which He recorded all the visions that Nethys showed to Him, at the beginning of this Game.

And so -

(says one small fragment of Nethys to the gods, borrowing sanity for it from His other fragments bending his will to say it)

- and so, compared to the baseline consequences of Nethys's null action, Keltham has been brought, now, to this pass, less hostile to Asmodeus.  Still kinda pissed, obviously, but in a way where gods can negotiate about that; where Keltham would rather offer Asmodeus something He wants than burn Him to ash at any cost.  Carissa Sevar has done everything she can to moderate Keltham's demands, and in many cases succeeded.

This is the nice friendly favor that Nethys has done practically everyone including Pharasma and Asmodeus!  Really, it's about as much as Nethys possibly could help Them all without giving up the tiniest bit of Nethys's own interests!

...also Carissa Sevar sold her Wishes to Keltham more knowingly than ever before; Carissa guessed more and Keltham told this Carissa more, before he bought her Wishes, than in any previous iteration.  Hopefully Pharasma doesn't destroy the universe about that!  Nethys thinks She oughtn't to, based on His having watched Carissa Sevar's mind the whole time and Carissa not visibly thinking that Pharasma would yield to threats, in making her decision there; but this part hasn't happened before.  Anyways that part was definitely an accident and Nethys did not mean to do it on purpose; it endangers His own interests too.

...It's so awful and sad, and even, in some awful sad way, funny.

Having so many emotions all at once, expressed without mutual inhibition, is not something She has yet accustomed Herself to, and She is in no hurry to sort Herself out quickly.  She is not here to decide any of what follows, only to be a slave to those who will end up taking ownership of Her.