It took ages to build.
It takes one second to break.
Go on.
Every house, tower and tree is a stack of pieces, and every piece is pre-cut into stone, plaster and timber chunks that start welded together.
A hard enough hit snaps the welds near the impact, so things break where they are hit, not everywhere.
Pieces carry the load above them. Knock out the support and what stood on it leans, hesitates, then falls.
The laser slices every chunk along a plane; tornado and black hole are plain force fields pulling on whatever is awake.
Settled debris falls asleep, so a quiet island costs nothing. All sounds are synthesised live.