At least the clan had their defensive preparations to fall back on—the huge wall, the reinforced sally ports, and various huge weapons like the heavy ballistae and spirit-infused catapults to rely upon. These were the traditional bulwarks of human civilisation against the wild.
Unlike them, the other two armies—the reinforcements from the academy and the neighbouring clans—were fighting monsters in the open, caught in the transition between the forests and the plains.
Not to mention, no matter how many spirit masters they had in their ranks, their total numbers wouldn't be equal to the full standing army of a clan fighting for its survival at its home base.
All that made their situation actually much more serious than the clan's. They were being picked apart in the tall grass, surrounded by predators that knew the terrain far better than any scholar or city-dweller.
