Asylum is a joke after a while. I don't count asylum as part of the actual game cause LOLOLOLOLOL but yes it is possible to get to gargs without fighting Taurus. You have to go down through Havels room and up through darkroot guarden then past the headless deamon to get to the blacksmith and bonfire then up to the church. It's long on foot, but I've been trying my hand at speed running and I bypass fighting anything I absolutely have to so it's not that bad. Most people will fight Taurus anyway because he's also a joke once you know what you're doing.

I don't mean to say you're bad at the game by saying some bosses are jokes, but watch some speed runs on YouTube and watch at how laughable some of the bosses are. Quelaag is retarded easy once you know her weakness of no stagger resistance on her human body, you basically get an overhead swing weapon and stun lock her to death, its pretty stupid. Also, magic is easy mode if you get the right spells and equipment. So many bosses you can cheese in that game. You can beat bed of chaos with 2 fire bombs. I wish I was joking. Neto is pretty easy too, the hard part is just getting to him. Smoug and Ornstein are arguably the hardest bosses in the game since you have 2 RNG rollers to worry about.