User blog comment:Miskos3/Fairy Tail Chapter 485: Five Days' Worth of Food, Review/@comment-5894890-20160516141832/@comment-5303512-20160518015701

In terms of injuries, this is a fictional universe, and FT characters are known for having strong convictions aka mind over matter, that can get up and fight, despite having major (not life threatening) injuries.

And FT is not the only case which characters get back up despite ludicrous injuries which are far worse than shown here.

When you lose a battle, it is true that logically you have to retreat to recuperate, but when your enemies are pushing you against the wall and invading you ur homeland at dangerous paste, time is not on your side and you must do something under critical moments. "Do or Die"

Like I said, as long as there is breath drawn in the fighters, "defeat" will never be truly shown, As long as there is one soldier willing to fight and moves forward, the battle will never be truly over. besides this is too early in the Northern battle to say that they would go in without strategy, who knows, Sting and Rogue may yet join Gajeel and they may share some info with him.