This road, with its enormous contrast in scale, was even longer than they had imagined.
Bolstered by the power of wind, they had been walking for nearly five minutes and still could not see its end. The oppressive feeling only grew heavier. Although Angel and the others were not greatly affected, they gradually fell silent and remained quiet.
That atmosphere of silence continued until they reached the first narrow passage.
The road could not keep getting wider forever, and there was a threshold to feelings of awe and insignificance. Thus, after traversing a long stretch of "avenue," they finally encountered their first narrow passage—the road had begun to gradually constrict.
There were no forks in this narrow passage, but a stone statue stood at each end.
The statue on the left had been utterly destroyed, leaving only its base. The one on the right had also been damaged, but half of its body remained. Judging from that half and the fragments scattered across the ground, the statue on the right should have been a centaur holding a round shield and a flail.
Speaking purely of Demonic Beasts, centaurs did not actually exist in the Southern Region. Even if they did, they would have smuggled themselves over from the Abyss.
Yet tales of centaurs were often passed down among the common folk. Like the tooth fairy and Santa Claus in Earth's fairy tales, they had sunk deep into people's hearts.
Among the populace, centaurs did not symbolize terrifying Demonic Beasts from the Abyss, but loyalty and steadfast devotion.
That was because centaur stories were generally the classic tale of heroes battling evil dragons, with the centaur as the solid support standing behind the hero.
Who had first compiled those centaur stories had long vanished into the river of history. Whether that