Does a Sphere of Annihilation immediately make a hole in a normal wall, or does it need to damage it first?

Question

The description of the Sphere of Annihilation magic item states, in part:

This 2-foot-diameter black sphere is a hole in the multiverse, hovering in space and stabilized by a magical field surrounding it.

The sphere obliterates all matter it passes through and all matter that passes through it. Artifacts are the exception. Unless an artifact is susceptible to damage from a sphere of annihilation, it passes through the sphere unscathed. Anything else that touches the sphere but isn't wholly engulfed and obliterated by it takes 4d10 force damage.

Let's say I have a normal wall made of bricks. Each brick is smaller than 2 feet, but the wall itself is bigger than 2 feet.

If I move the Sphere of Annihilation into the wall, does it instantly create a 2-foot hole in the wall? Or does it do 4d10 force damage to the wall repeatedly, every turn, until some bricks some loose to make a hole in the wall?

It seems to me that a wall is not "wholly engulfed" and thus would take the force damage until bricks come loose or start to crumble. The idea of a "thing" is a little nebulous; if the bricks were just stacked in a pile without being formed into a wall, I'd probably let individual bricks in a pile be annihilated.

Answer 1

There's no contradiction. The rules say the Sphere moves right through the wall, destroying what it touches. That makes a hole. The rules also say that since the Sphere didn't completely envelope the entire wall, then having that hole made caused 4D10 damage. For a big thick wall that may not matter, but for other inanimate objects you can use the damage to determine whether it's destroyed. For example a Wall of Stone might just have a hole, but if you roll high enough damage a 10x10 section could collapse.