Chemical Explosion and "destroy"

So the new Chemical Explosion says*

Destroy all vat cards.

Deal each target X toxic damage, where X = the number of cards destroyed by this card plus 3.

At the end of the environment card, destroy this card.

which got me thinking.

The card does not specify VAT cards destroyed, just cards destroyed. If Chemical Explosion reduces a target to 0, thus destroying it, would the damage increase by 1? Literal reading would have you increase the damage but I'm not sure if the intent is for the wave to get bigger as it goes. Opinions?

*and I really do miss that extra C

The damage is very clearly intended to be dependent on the number of vats destroyed, and only dependent on the number of vats destroyed.

I suppose you COULD rule that the damage increases as targets die by a particularly pedantic reading of RAW, but I don't think that's a good idea.

The only thing that makes me doubt your words (and it is how I play it... so far) is that the update did not change it to "vat cards", I wonder if it just never came up before.

That chemical explosion would have ended us if we had played it that way

Of course if you do play with it increasing, you could choose the order of the targets, usually to your advantage: hit all the heroes first, then the low HP targets, then the main villains.

It will always be a Checmical Explosion to me, no matter what fancy new correctly-spelled name it's calling itself nowadays.